Summer hours continue. Daily Episcopalian will publish every other day this week.
By Marshall Scott
I have been intrigued by the commitment Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have made to give away at least 50% of their wealth to charitable purposes either before or at their deaths, and by their efforts (their successful efforts!) to get other folks in similar financial situations to do the same. As a student of history, I found myself thinking of them as “the new Carnegies,” after Andrew Carnegie, so much of whose money went to libraries.
Interested as I am, I had to notice when I saw last week a commentator on one of the financial channels questioning their efforts. While he had several questions about such philanthropic decisions, one stood out. If these folks really wanted to help folks, shouldn’t they invest in businesses, and so create jobs, instead of distributing it for philanthropy?
Now, another commentator had good answers for that, mostly about the number of job training programs support by charities. However, I think both of them missed a much more basic point. You see, I think the Carnegies both new and old aren’t interested in just “distributing.” They really are interested in investing – just not in the ways that the first commentator would recognize. They’re interested in investing, not for individuals, whether shareholders or employees. They’re interested in investing in commonwealth – in investing in “us and ours,” instead of “me and mine.”
Now, I don’t want to make saints out of sinners. On the one hand, I think I can trust Jesus to take care of that. On the other, I know that the scions of America’s Gilded Age commonly had mixed motives in their giving. Carnegie certainly understood how education had helped him, and so built libraries and a university. He also understood that an educated workforce was in the long term interest of industry. Mining companies and major landholders built churches for their workers. However they might have thought it would benefit their own souls, they were also quite clear that they were providing a social outlet and a source of support that would keep workers functional, if not necessarily happy.
I will admit that as an investment, philanthropy won’t maximize resources. First, such investment is chancy. Human beings are irregular, unpredictable, and there’s no guarantee they’ll use wisely the resources invested in them. And then these are long term investments. The value of a child’s education won’t be known literally for decades, nor reliably measurable in less than a lifetime. So, these aren’t the kind of investments that work neatly in a world focused on quarterly statements and predictable profit. They’re much more long term.
However, they still saw those efforts as investments that would benefit them and their companies precisely because they would benefit all, the whole community. That is, they had a clear sense that investing in the community was worthwhile. They saw there was something to be gained – gained financially, true, but not just financially – by investing in people. Whether we attribute it to higher moral ideals or to a simple sense of noblesse oblige, they had a sense that the future, including their own future, would be better for the commitment in people. (Full disclosure: as an Episcopal priest in the Church Pension Fund, I am directly a beneficiary of the Morgans and others who helped establish the Fund.)
The “new Carnegies” also seem to have that sense. For good and ill, the concept of noblesse oblige seems to have been lost as we’ve swung so extremely into our individualism. They have challenged this with their commitment not simply to give here and there, but for each to give at least half of his or her substance for the good of others.
In my lifetime I have seen that sense of commonwealth, that sense that we are all connected and that we all benefit when the community benefits, fade. I have attributed it in part to Lady Thatcher, when she said, “And you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbour” (a comment I think marks the beginning of the fall of Western Civilization). Among her contemporaries, including President Reagan, that became the great individualistic articulation. After all, it sounds like a clarion call to personal responsibility; and how could one meaningfully invest in society if society doesn’t exist?
Well, there’s certainly something to be said for personal responsibility. It works with the idolatry of “rugged individualism” that so pervades our social and political culture (a phrase that is truly is in itself a refutation of Lady Thatcher’s statement). On the other hand, we are all clear, or should be, that “rugged individualism” is not a Christian doctrine, nor as near as I can tell that of almost any other faith community. If to love neighbor as self is essential to the Christian faith (and indeed to all the Abrahamic faiths), we can neither claim nor affirm “rugged individualism.” Certainly, here at the Café I need not reiterate the Summary of the Law or the Baptismal Covenant or the many sayings of Jesus calling us to be responsible one for another.
Still, to the extent that they discuss society, many of those embracing “rugged individualism” challenge programs of charity and philanthropy, not as bad ideas in the abstract, but as impracticable; not as ungenerous, but as subject to waste and fraud. They have a point, and they are invariably happy to offer examples, some of which are even accurate. We appreciate that in our fallen state there will always be those who will take advantage, who will take money and benefits for which they aren’t actually qualified. And the critics have a point that, if we do want to act socially or communally, that fraud wastes our corporate resources, thus injuring all of us and each of us individually.
Well, yes, there is always potential for waste and fraud; and that does cause us some injury, some additional sacrifice. One the other hand, if we’re idolizing “rugged individualism” and personal responsibility regardless of circumstances, there is also waste. It is true that if we maximize how many people we might serve, we will certainly waste some money. However, if we maximize our control of the money, our control of what we pretend we give as gift, we waste people. If our control on resources is tight enough to prevent any mistakes or waste, people who might be served will fall through the cracks – or the chasms.
Now, I know these positions are themselves somewhat abstract. Money wasted also limits the number of folks we might serve; and service without some sort of personal participation, of personal responsibility, can leave some people habituated to dependency.
That said, these positions remain in my consideration of social and political decisions. Is it more acceptable to invest in people, to work as hard as we can to serve all who need, even if we end up wasting some money? Or is it more acceptable to invest in resources, to work as hard as we can to prevent waste and fraud, even if we end up with some people falling by the wayside? Well, I know where I come down; and, looking at the Gospels, I think I know where Jesus will come down, too.
The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.