Martin Henry
WARREN BUFFETT, until recently the world's second richest man, has just given most of his wealth away.
The Wizard of Omaha, who made his billions as an investor, has enigmatically chosen to give the bulk of his donations to the foundation run by Bill and Melinda Gates who until recently were the world's richest couple. Buffett is pumping $31 billion dollars into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and smaller billions into four foundations set up in the names of his three children and deceased wife.
It wasn't easy to decide where to put the money. The 75-year-old Buffett says philanthropic decisions are tougher than investment decisions.
The Gates Foundation has chosen to focus on improving education in the United States, international health, access to technology in developing countries, to which has been added biotechnology, agriculture, and micro-credit for small businesses.
BIGGEST CHARITABLE DONATION
The publicity for Buffett's handing over of his fortune to another rich man's foundation was carefully staged to coax "more of the people who are super-lucky to get involved" in philanthropy. The signing ceremony for the biggest single charitable donation in history was carefully staged at the New York Public Library. The famous library owes its existence to major philanthropic donations and to public subscription by people of ordinary means.
And that has been the story of so many American institutions. Virtually all the Ivy League universities are the results of the philanthropy of the wealthy.
Foundations flourish in the United States, pouring billions of dollars into their pet development projects at home and abroad. There are the old Jamaican counterpart Ivy League schools built by philanthropy. One of my own philanthropic dreams is for the creation of a school for the brightest and the best regardless of wealth status for a rigorous liberal education for leadership.
Commendably, foundations are springing up in Jamaica and are having a significant impact. But like Bill Gates, I believe many more 'super-lucky' people and institutions need to back many more worthy causes with their wealth.
There is an astringent economic justice against fortunes tightly hoarded and transmitted in families: They don't last. Sometimes it takes only a single generation after the creation of great personal wealth for it to be completely dissipated. But philanthropy takes root and endures in its results.
In 'The Constitution of Liberty', Nobel laureate in economics, F. A. Hayek, with support from fellow great economists John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, writes about the "importance of the man of independent means": "The importance of the private owner of substantial property," Hayek agues, "does not rest simply on the fact that his existence is an essential condition for the preservation of the structure of competitive enterprise.
INDISPENSABLE ROLE
"The man of independent means is an even more important figure in a free society when he is not occupied with using his capital in the pursuit of material gain but uses it in the service of aims which bring no material return. It is more in the support of aims which the mechanism of the market cannot adequately take care of than in preserving that market that the man of independent means has his indispensable role to play in any civilised society."
As Hayek explains, "The leadership of individuals or groups that can back their beliefs financially is particularly essential in the field of cultural amenities, in the fine arts, in education and research, in the preservation of natural beauty and historic treasures, and, above all, in the propagation of new ideas in politics morals, and religion.
In the area of politics in Jamaica, in bigging up the masses and messianic leaders, we have been far too reluctant to properly acknowledge the role of wealthy backers in the formation and survival of the PNP and the JLP, and even of the Garvey Movement. Garvey himself explicitly acknowledged his debt to white and brown wealth and influence.
So, my other projects for philanthropic support. A development think tank, a cutting edge applied scientific research institute, resuscitation and expansion of the Institute of Jamaica idea, historical documentation project and museums ... OK. Let's hold the list and go find the money.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
