Warren Buffett is famous for being the most fabulously successful investor ever. That his skill in making money is matched by his willingness to give it away makes his son’s diatribe against philanthropy all the more astonishing.
Ungenerous observers will see Peter Buffett’s recent outburst against “philanthropic colonialism” in The New York Times as the ultimate filial ungratefulness. Mr Buffett père pledged in 2006 to give away 99 per cent of his wealth to charitable causes. He has talked other ultra-rich people into donating at a similarly astronomical scale. Arguing that philanthropy is futile is an elegant way for the younger Buffett to protest at his relative disinheritance. To be fair, though, both father and son are clear that they retain more spending money than anyone could conceivably need.
Mr Buffett fils accuses the “charitable-industrial complex” of being everything from hypocritical to counterproductive. “The rich sleep better at night”, he says. Furthermore, he also asserts that the woes generous business people seek to remedy are created by their own business activities. In fact their acts of charity “just keep the pot from boiling over” and so lock the poor into structural inequalities. Far from a solution, philanthropy is at the root of the problem.