Today’s business news had me thinking of two things: Andrew Carnegie and whether there are any significant brown philanthropists.
Carnegie was a self-made man who went from rags to riches, creating a steel empire which made him the wealthiest hombre alive. Three men in today’s paper might be seen as present day Carnegies — Laxmi Mittal, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet — the three richest men around. Laxmi Mittal is the most literal aspirant to the title since Arcelor-Mittal will soon be the largest steel company in the world. However, the other two capture what is to me Carnegie’s best attribute, his philanthropy.
Just as Carnegie gave away 90% of his fortune [he built a university, several thousand libraries around the world, and did various other good works], Warren Buffet announced that he will be giving away 85% of his wealth with most of it going to more than double the endowment of the Gates Foundation, now the largest charitable foundation in history.
Are rich brown people simply more selfish than rich white ones?Compare Buffet and Gates to Mittal, the next richest man in the world. Mittal is famous for his personal spending. He owns the world’s most expensive house, which he purchased for $128 million. He recently spent more than $55 million dollars on his daughter’s wedding. But his charitable giving rarely (never?) makes the news, and is not in the same league as either his personal consumption or the donations of his “peers”.
The question is, why not? Mittal competes on every level with his white counterparts except that of his charitable giving. Is this a desi thing? Are brown philanthropists as generous as white ones? Who are the major brown philanthropists anyway?
Why do philanthropists give away their money? Some do it out of a sense of social or religious obligation. But I suspect their deepest motivations are the same as those which led them to amass the money in the first place – a desire to change the world and leave behind a significant legacy.
The Gates Foundation is currently one of the most important forces in Third World public health. It already accounts for 1/6th of world spending to eradicate polio and that was before doubling in size. With the addition of the Buffet money, the foundation will be giving away between two and three billion dollars a year, spending much of it on research into the treatment and eradication of diseases that afflict the poor.
Many countries are currently caught in a catch-22: poor health keeps poor countries poor (For example, Sachs estimates that if Malaria had been eradicated 35 years ago, African GDP would be 32% higher today), but until they’re wealthier, big pharma has little interest in developing drugs to treat them. The foundation hopes to change that. They’re the major mover into things like a vaccine against malaria and innovations into “dry vaccines”, vaccines that don’t need to be refrigerated so they can reach the rural poor. If they succeed in even some of their initiatives, they will significantly transform global health and lift millions out of poverty.
Are there wealthy desis who are animated by a similar spirit, even if on a smaller scale? Or are they simply numb to poverty having grown up with it? Are rich brown people simply more selfish than rich white ones?
Ennis
Not the best of sources, but this is what I have:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1205539-1,00.html
Dharma Queen
Another way to put it is that giving is still very personalized and focussed on extended family, neighborhood and religion. It would be great if there was some way to institutionalize it while preserving the characteristic indic personal element in all of this.
A voluntary “charity tax” on earned income ?
I think that the American habit of philanthropy is rooted in history–the frontier and community self-help. There were no state institutions–the people had to organize schools and fire brigades (to take two examples) for themselves. This builds in the notion that a virtuous person contributes to the community.
A second strand has to do with the flowering of fraternal orders in the 19th century — the Elks, the Masons and the like. These organizations weren’t just social — they served philanthropic ends as well (The Shriners built hospitals, for example, to provide free care).
A third strand has to do with the Protestant influence, in all its flavors. Many denominations had a focus on philanthropy mixed with missionary work. Again, giving money to the less fortunate = virtue.
When I started fundraising in Silicon Valley in the late 1970s, the complaint was that the “new rich” — the first wave of SV $$$aires — were philanthropic skinflints compared with their capacity. It took time to educate folks that you do more than a few hundred bucks to United Way. It took time to develop the understanding that effective philanthropy is more than just writing a check.
Ennis, if you want to build a database of desi philanthropists, a wiki is probably the best bet.
The problem with this is that it is usually parochial in nature, implicitly (if not explicitly) bounded by a community. Money tends to go to others like you, but worse off. Except for patron-client relationships like bosses and employees, I’ll bet there isn’t a lot of charity between Hindus and Muslims (in either direction).
More parochial giving is far more limited in its impact.
Why? Isn’t the point of charity that it goes to the most needy, not to those closest to us? Otherwise it degenerates into an extended kitty party.
Actually, the two examples I cited were not at all cases in which the donor and the recipient knew each other. These people who came to our door were total strangers. They certainly could have been Muslims. My Dad’s chauffeur was a Muslim, and no one knew (he’s known as Raju) until our maid mentioned it casually one day. No one cared. I think the assumption is very unfair that people in India give strictly to relatives or those who are members of their ethnic/religious community (and I would consider it racist if it came from a white person). The neighbours in my ancestral hood (which is sort of the Indian version of intensely WASP-y) gave without discrimination to those who came to their door.
I have also seen local restaurants in India with lineups outside of street people who were receiving free meals. Again, no one needed an ethnic or religious badge in order to receive the meals.
In Indian religious lore, there are many tales in which guests or beggars are actually gods in disguise. I believe there is a tradition of informal community giving which draws on this.
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Hmmm…. this sounds a little prescriptive to me. People should be free to donate to those groups who they feel are effective/appropriate/whatever. In the indian context, there is a need for more transparency and clarity (where is the money contributed to the local mandir going? How many people were fed last year? How many scholarships did so-and-so samaj provide?), other than that I think the community-based indic model is actually quite good.
“where is the money contributed to the local mandir going?”
if you want to know where the money collected at many of india’s most prominent and wealthiest hindu temples and not-so-prominent ones go, just ask the indian government, which controls it. it would be interesting to see how transparent they are about what they do with every rupee collected from temples.
From my experience working with an Indian charity organisation in US, Indians(fobs) are definetly less charitable. I am talking about normal middle class people. Most of our fundraising events are attended by more americans than the Indians. Among Indians there is general apathy towards charity. People think unless they are filthy rich they cannot donate. The idea of giving a tiny share of whatever/however much you earn to community is absent. The idea of community is absent, even among people who are otherwise very helpful for friends and family.
One reason could be that it needs considerable effort to identify a good and honest charity in India. But that alone cannot account for the monumental apathy.
Brown people = noveau rich
Re #58 . Thats a very judjemental statment for such a subjective issue. What is the experience you are referring to? Or is it a voice in your head?
Indian charity is directed to relatives and friends, western charity to institutions and people one does not even know. It’s a fundamental cultural difference, manifested in many other areas such as the Indian penchant for telling everything to close relatives and the American habit of telling everything to the person in the next seat on a flight but absolutely nothing to your own brother.
Just look at how generously Indians help their relatives. We will keep an entire needy family under our roof until they can afford a place of their own even if it involves making our own kids suffer. But give to United Way? Sorry, we already gave at home.
I think it is this cultural bias towards the near and dear vs. the anonymous and the institutional that explains the obvious callousness of people in India to strangers. Yes, Indians would not go out of their way to help strangers but they will give the “banians” off their backs to a friend or relative. Americans, on the other hand, would dole out an equal measure of good samaritanism to a large number of strangers – but will not give all to anyone, even their next of kin.
This cultural difference was explained to me 33 years ago when I first set foot in America as a young kid, fresh off the boat – actually, an Air India flight. An Indian friend who had already lived here for a few years took me under his wings and proceeded to teach me the subtleties of friendship American style vs. what I was used to. His point was that friendship in the western sense is more about shared experiences and not necessarily about sacrifices. Having made many American friends in my 33 years in this great country, I still find his point to ring true. Incidentally, I am not being judgmental about either of the two cultures. They are what they are.
Getting back to the brown charity issue, let’s not forget the Indian custom of donating generously to temples, swamis and gurus. Just go to your nearest temple and read the long list of donors. The churches are lucky to get a few dollars from each family after the Sunday service.
60
When the Gujarat EQ happened, we raised close to $20k in a small univ town. Most people donating were undergrads with loose change. When we organise Indian luncheons/classical art programs most people attending them are again americans. Indians are mostly absent (barely 20-30% of audience). Unless there is a calamity Indians donot donate, though they know very well that life is a disaster for these people with or without a calamity. 2. There are some Indians here who donate regularly large amounts, but they are generally older generation and have been here for a long time. 3. I thought that maybe these people are donating to other charities or are students and hence donot have enough money to donate. I have talked to some of them and that is not the case. These people drive around in cars, eat at restaurant or go to a movie everyweek, but have never given
True. If we were to assume that Indians did give less based on anecdotal evidence, it might be explained by the insecurities regarding money that are created in a developing country. Growing up with a stark reminder of poverty might make it harder to give away the money you have.
Well I read a couple of these comments, and I’d just like to say we’re not rich, and we’re brown, but we give all the time, sometimes more than we can afford,and if more people like us gave some of their nothing away, they wouldn’t worry about what the rich people are doing. By the way we are brown, south of the boarder, and I don’t mean china.
TO,