Il Guardian propone un estratto da Philanthropy – From Aristotle to Zuckerberg, l’ultimo saggio dello scrittore britannico Paul Vallely. Nel frammento pubblicato dal quotidiano inglese, l’autore sostiene – presentando e commentando i risultati di alcuni studi – che una buona parte dell’attività filantropica costituisca un ostacolo antidemocratico alla libera scelta delle politiche pubbliche da parte dei governi, in special modo nell’ambito della fiscalità, spiegando, a supporto di questa posizione, come il meccanismo delle donazioni spesso funga da strumento funzionale alla perpetuazione dello status quo e perciò da ostacolo alla messa in campo di tutte quelle misure che potrebbero efficacemente contrastare le sempre più aspre disuguaglianze economiche.

Philanthropy, it is popularly supposed, transfers money from the rich to the poor. This is not the case. In the US, which statistics show to be the most philanthropic of nations, barely a fifth of the money donated by big givers goes to the poor. A lot goes to the arts, sports teams and other cultural pursuits, and half goes to education and healthcare. At first glance that seems to fit the popular profile of “giving to good causes”. But dig down a little.

The biggest donations in education in 2019 went to the elite universities and schools that the rich themselves had attended. In the UK, in the 10-year period to 2017, more than two-thirds of all millionaire donations – £4.79bn – went to higher education, and half of these went to just two universities: Oxford and Cambridge. When the rich and the middle classes give to schools, they give more to those attended by their own children than to those of the poor. British millionaires in that same decade gave £1.04bn to the arts, and just £222m to alleviating poverty.

The common assumption that philanthropy automatically results in a redistribution of money is wrong. A lot of elite philanthropy is about elite causes. Rather than making the world a better place, it largely reinforces the world as it is. Philanthropy very often favours the rich – and no one holds philanthropists to account for it.

Immagine da The Indipendent