Spending money meaningfully is hard work. John D. Rockefeller had such a hard time with it that after awhile he just left it up to his son, who devoted his life to philanthropy.
At the Cleveland church he went to, significant portions of his time spent there was to write checks to parishioners.
I'd say it takes roughly the same amount of effort to spend money as it does to make it. You still need an organization, you still need to make really hard decisions day in and day out. It seems that there's something fundamental about philanthropy that doesn't scale.
Personally, I think the work a person does to earn that kind of money, assuming of course it's from legitimate commercial activity, is plenty enough, one shouldn't feel morally compelled to donate it back. But like you said, what else are you going to do with it? Doesn't make a lot of sense anymore to leave billions to heirs.
Relevant bit from Playboy's interview with Steve Jobs:
> Playboy: What does the money actually mean to you?
> Jobs: I still don’t understand it. It’s a large responsibility to have more than you can spend in your lifetime—and I feel I have to spend it. If you die, you certainly don’t want to leave a large amount to your children. It will just ruin their lives. And if you die without kids, it will all go to the Government. Almost everyone would think that he could invest the money back into humanity in a much more astute way than the Government could. The challenges are to figure out how to live with it and to reinvest it back into the world, which means either giving it away or using it to express your concerns or values.
> Playboy: So what do you do?
> Jobs: That’s a part of my life that I like to keep private. When I have some time, I’m going to start a public foundation. I do some things privately now.
> Playboy: You could spend all of your time disbursing your money.
> Jobs: Oh, you have to. I’m convinced that to give away a dollar effectively is harder than to make a dollar.
In typical Jobsian fashion. He talked a good game, but decided to do the opposite. Put his wealth into a living trust to shield it from taxes and publicity and left it to benefit his wife and children.
> Personally, I think the work a person does to earn that kind of money, assuming of course it's from legitimate commercial activity, is plenty enough, one shouldn't feel morally compelled to donate it back.
Agreed. And not to get too political, but I'm thankful that individuals in the U.S. are exceptionally generous, and do think about these things. And that those who DO earn copious amounts of money have the choice of what to donate it to - rather than having 90% of it confiscated and doled out by someone else who didn't earn it.
John D. Rockefeller started the University of Chicago. Much of his time had to be spent convincing his trustees that they had to spend time soliciting funds from other donors than him. They tended to get slothful and spendthrift otherwise.
Teaching isn't presently scalable. You can look to the failures of our public school system for evidence. One might be tempted to look to other countries for systems that work better, but there has to be a political path forward for implementing those systems here.
One good teacher can only teach so many. That good teacher may not be good at teaching teachers. Teaching is not warfare, where good soldiers can teach other people to teach soldiers.
Teachers that are good at teaching teachers can only teach so many teachers. Any attempt to scale a working method will eventually run out of talent. And if you don't stop when you run out of talent, then the quality of your teaching will inevitably go down. Universities can only get so big.
Billionaires who want to put their wealth towards education are pretty limited in their options.
At the Cleveland church he went to, significant portions of his time spent there was to write checks to parishioners.
I'd say it takes roughly the same amount of effort to spend money as it does to make it. You still need an organization, you still need to make really hard decisions day in and day out. It seems that there's something fundamental about philanthropy that doesn't scale.
Personally, I think the work a person does to earn that kind of money, assuming of course it's from legitimate commercial activity, is plenty enough, one shouldn't feel morally compelled to donate it back. But like you said, what else are you going to do with it? Doesn't make a lot of sense anymore to leave billions to heirs.