I am not big on charity but I am a firm believer that people are free to do with their own money as they please. What I take issue with is people taking it upon themselves to decide how others should spend their money.
A point often made is that billionaires should be “doing more” to solve the world’s problems. They go on to calculate how many starving children in Africa could Bezos feed if he gave away his wealth, private jet, mansion etc.
Putting aside the question of how that would solve the long-term problems of inequality in access to resources, lack of infrastructure and job opportunities, the question I have is: what gives people the right to decide how other people should spend their money irrespective of how that money was earned? If wealth was acquired illegitimately, it is on the authorities to prevent that since it is their job, not up to us random strangers to correct such injustice. And certainly not by telling people what to do with their money.
However, more importantly, people forget that everything is relative. To us, average people in industrialised counties, with a mean income of $35k per annum, MacKenzie Scott’s ex husband represents obscene wealth but in the exact same way to people who survive on less than a dollar per day, our wealth appears to be similarly disproportionately great. But for some reason people who are earning an average or low income, not forgoing buying themselves iPhones and plasma TVs to use that money to feed a stranger village in Africa or to build infrastructure in South Asia instead. I am not saying that is what they should do my personal view is that people should be free to spend their own money on whatever they pleased and not be compelled to do what others think they should.
People so eager to decide how “the rich” should spend their money do not think about how they can also be viewed as rich by those who have significantly less money living in poorer countries. Our perception of other people is formed relative to where we see ourselves. A person living on $500 believes that if he had $30,000 all his needs would be met using $10,000 and anything beyond that is extra and not necessary and should be donated. Similarly, to us – a billion seems more than anyone could possibly need so anything above a certain amount should be used to solve world problems. What people seem to miss is that as our wealth grows, so do our wants, very few people maintain the same level of consumption as their income multiplies.
In the same way that we are not giving up our comfortable cars and small luxuries in order to save the world, we should not expect others to do that either, even if their “luxuries” seem excessive to us.
loved this post and i agree especailly the part where you say