Peter Buffett, son of billionaire Warren Buffett, is not happy with the philanthropic giants that have decided to save the world.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Peter Buffett writes what he has learned about Philanthropic Colonialism:
“People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education practices, job training or business development, over and over I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms.”
Now he realizes that philanthropy has become a vehicle to assuage the guilt of the super-rich, who can “give back” instead of actually doing anything to change the structural income inequality that creates the problems the rich want to solve:
“Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left. There are plenty of statistics that tell us that inequality is continually rising. At the same time, according to the Urban Institute, the nonprofit sector has been steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent. Their growth rate now exceeds that of both the business and government sectors. It’s a massive business, with approximately $316 billion given away in 2012 in the United States alone and more than 9.4 million employed.
Philanthropy has become the “it” vehicle to level the playing field and has generated a growing number of gatherings, workshops and affinity groups.
As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.
But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over.”
I don’t think that any reader of this blog knows Peter Buffett.
But if you do, please tell him that his father added $30 billion to Bill Gates’ $30 billion, and that this money is being used to privatize American public education and to dismantle the teaching profession.
Tell him this money is being used to tell states that teachers should not be paid more for extra degrees or experience.
Please tell him that this money is being used to impose Bill Gates’ wrong ideas about how teachers should be evaluated.
Please tell him that this money is being used to reduce everyone to a data point.
If we could get just one intelligent billionaire on our side, we could stop the other ones in their tracks.
Why? Because they are doing exactly what Peter Buffett described in this article. Engaging in Philanthropic Colonialism. Imposing their idea of what works in institutions about which they know nothing and where they have little or no experience. Furthermore, they are using “education reform” to claim that poverty doesn’t matter. They are “conscience laundering” and hurting the children of the poor by denying them the very real reforms they need: small classes, experienced teachers, a full curriculum with arts, physical education, and all the other studies that belong in schools, and a genuine national effort to reduce poverty and segregation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Unless you’ve seen Peter Buffet’s spreadsheet, I’d be chary of presuming he’s a billionaire. His father is famous for making sure his children make their own way. The Buffets are not the Waltons.
Regardless of his accounts, Peter Buffet appears to be on our aside and he appears to be a particularly knowledgeable ally.
He certainly has the potential to be an ally.
I clicked on the link to his website listed in the article. But it appears there’s something wrong with the website. Says “bandwith limit exceeded” and it’s not on my end. This is something maybe Ralph Nader can handle since he’s publicly advocated for getting a few billionaires on our side. But it’s true, the charitable industrial complex is awful. It mostly lets the guys who wrecked the economy and made it unequal in the first place get tax write-offs for choosing the winners and losers based on who they give a few bucks to. I wanted to see who his foundation actually gave money to and what they did.
The article was in the New York Times on July 26. I will check the link.
Diane,
Although I agree with Buffett’s point about philanthropic approach has shortcomings…AND the damage of Gates having a dominant
roll in molding whatever education ‘standard’ our nation adopts.
its hard from me to go down both paths…as Peter’s point is on a different plane.
But, I do enjoy your blog. Keep up the lively posts.
ajbruno14 gmail.com
Here is the link to the Peter’s beautiful NoVo foundation:
http://novofoundation.org/
It will take you to “A Year at Mission Hill”, and other good places. It promises to focus on improving the lives of adolescent girls.
Diane, I think you’re wrong in your idea that one righteous billionaire could save humanity from the other billionaires. He may or may not be a billionaire in his own right, but Peter Buffet is already one of ours. He, at least, understands that he’s free to make whatever contribution he can through his own humanity and understanding, the same as all of us.
Our different situations mean there’s a different price we have to pay when we choose our own freedom to oppose power and greed. Peter Buffet comes out of his existential crisis in a bed of roses, but I don’t hold that against him.
Often, those who have investment in the system think they can’t afford to buck it. Peter points out the charitable-industrial complex has 9.4 million employees. That includes, I guess, the entire paid education reform advocacy industry. They often act as though they’re less free than the 52 year old grandma who sees her livelihood end for defending her adolescent girl students.
We don’t need one humanist billionaire, so much we need a billion courageous individual choices.
You make some excellent points. But, I often see many of the charities becoming political AND very profitable for those who
run them, taking advantage of the generosity of the wealthy
to go beyond aiding those in need.
I believe we are at an intersection of govt/non-profits driving
political agenda, doing some good….but never achieving
the ‘victories’ we all would like to see. ajbruno14 gmail
Here is the link. It worked for me:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100831257
Sorry. The above link is to the “$316 billion” mentioned in the article.
Peter is trying to figure out all the harm he sees being done in the name of charity, but the actual reasons are almost too ugly and scary for even outsiders to confront.
Here it is, Peter. Brace yourself.
The people gathered in that room aren’t “searching for answers “, they’re searching for excuses. Their self-righteous charitable posturing is what gives them legal, tax-deductible license to inflict more damaging policies on the people whose lives they’ve already damaged. Instead of assuaging their consciences, they’ve found a new vehicle to assuage their apparently insatiable thirst for new profit centers.
I can only give you one link, so here it is. This is the man your daddy gave all that money to, explaining that his “new model for giving” is to guarantee profits for the corporations he invests in. His “charity” is focused overwhelmingly on advocacy for policies to guarantee that public expenditures and actual charity be channeled to guarantee profit.
He’s talking to the other billionaires here, Peter. It’s all a big mealy-mouthed billionaire scam.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2012/09/18/bill-gates-my-new-model-for-giving/
Saying they’re searching for excuses is too kind, and it’s far worse than that: they’re looking for other, tax-free vehicles for their infinite greed and will to power.
What other conclusion is possible, given the existence of something as transparently self-interested as “venture philanthropy?”
The proper term for this phenomena is “Malanthropy,” deceptively using the rhetoric and apparatus of “non-profit” to advance one’s interests, to the detriment of society.
Dear Diane,
There are very good reasons not to pay teachers for “extra” degrees or for experience. The point is if you do the job, you should get paid for the job. As a college professor teaching the same course as a colleague who had a higher degree, he got paid more than I because he had a a Ph.D. and I only a Master’s degree. Same job, different pay, because . . . These systems were set up with a primary goal (from management’s side) and that was to avoid paying full salary. I have been a apart of two college districts. Each of them required me to work almost 20 years to get full salary. What job requires twenty years to reach full salary? The Highway Patrolmen in my state got it in four.
One should have a greater salary when one tackles more work or tougher problems. Senior faculty often sit on their behinds and do little committee work, take no leadership positions, and do the minimum, yet get paid more because of their seniority?
We should distinguish between an effort to give us all the same salary near the bottom of current schedules vs. near the top. If near the top, I have no problem with that at all.
I doubt you taught the same course. I mean, sure, it might have had the same course number and title, and maybe you even covered the same basic material. But your colleague’s Ph.D. means that he’s been immersed in the material far longer and far more in depth than you and he has the benefit of that immersion to offer to his students. That’s why he deserves to be paid more than you.
I don’t know what your masters degree is in, Stephen, or where you got it, but if it didn’t increase your qualifications to teach or serve your students in your own discipline, then you’re the one who’s decided to turn higher education into crap. You could have used your access to education as an opportunity to grow, as millions have. From your own description, there is no reason whatsoever your department should advance you up the pay scale.
The designation of academic rank, and the decision by a university to award tenure are fraught with difficulties, but the result is that we have (for now) a cohort of college faculty with developed talent and dedication. Human judgement comes into the mix, as well as service.
If your goal is an academic career, I would recommend indeed that you undertake the long vow of poverty and dedication that leads to a worthy doctorate, even though little weasels with a cheap masters they don’t even respect themselves will try to pull you down.
You’ll have me, and a whole community of others, rooting for you then.
Disclaimer: my husband is tenured faculty in the School of Health and Clinical Sciences at a public university. He is dedicated to preserving the path for his young colleagues to reach full professorship, with all the responsibility it entails. You, by contrast, seem intent on degrading the work you claim to know and do. You have no idea, apparently, how hard faculty works.
While I have no idea how long it takes to reach a full professorship, I do agree that I shouldn’t have waited 22 years to get top salary as an elementary school teacher in NYC. It used to be 20, then the UFT agreed to 25. That was the first time in my tenure as a teacher, we voted down the contract and it was renegotiated to 22.
It’s way too long and many teachers had to work 2 or more jobs in order to make ends meet. Yet we are required to pay $$$$$ for a Masters and 30 credits over to meet the top salary requirement.
When the school custodian makes more money than we do, something if off.
In four year institutions a faculty member is hired as an assistant professor. After six years the person is either promoted to associate professor with tenure or is given one additional year of employment and fired. After that, it depends on the individual. The associate professor need not go up for promotion to full professor. Generally those on the fast track might go up for promotion to full professor six years after receiving tenure, but associate professors can go up for promotion whenever they think they have a strong case for promotion. It Is not a matter of years put in, but of deserving the promotion. Some full professors will eventually be promoted to distinguished professor, but these are relatively few in number.
One problem I’ll point out is that where I am from (Indiana), in public K-12 education they recently passed a law saying that extra degrees do not qualify for extra pay, however teachers need to continue their education and pay for college to remain teachers. Therefore teachers need to continue to spend thousands for no monetary gain. Two, it’s almost impossible for anyone other than the teacher to know if he is doing well at teaching. I was observed 30 minutes per academic year – that was my evaluation. To create an accountable system based on teaching skills and not just grades would double the cost of education (In K-12 you can’t just use test data because that would assume all students are cognitively able to or have a desire to pass the SATs for example.) Three, this is my opinion but at university I new a lot of teachers with Ph. ds who could never get tenure or a senior position as professor. It seems to me that many universities are dropping permanent positions and filling all positions with teachers with Ph Ds or Masters Degrees but not putting them on staff – only paying them a couple thousand per class – Which is a lot less than I made as a High School English Teacher. If that is the case it would be very bad for American Education.
I don’t know the context where Peter Buffett said these things, but isn’t it good that he sees this? I was excited to read his words. Maybe we shouldn’t kick him when he seems to be seeing the problem as many of us public school educators and patents do. I was thinking his making those observations would be a step in the right direction.
I agree.
Nobody I know of is kicking Peter Buffett. It’s this Warren guy we’re opposing.
OK.
I would hate to do something good or something bold and then have people just start talking about my dad, that’s all. I thought maybe the emphasis should be on son’s noble juxtaposition to his father (as you point out above).
I was confused by the post.
Mike Klonsky posted on this in his Schooling in the Ownership Society blog. He also posted, without comment, a response to Buffett’s piece from someone by the name of Karl Muth who basically argues in favor of this style of philanthropy. http://schoolingintheownershipsociety.blogspot.com/2013/07/peter-buffett-has-not-taste-for.html
This is also the son whose father Warren declared that there was something horribly wrong and immoral when his secretary/receptionist was paying a 33% income tax rate on about $40,000 a year while he was paying about 14% on several million dollars in income that very same tax year.
Sometimes I am convinced that people in this income level are disconnected because they have NO idea and NO experience with what people, who they are trying to help, are going through. Philanthropists can feel sympathy but are severely challenged when it comes to generating true empathy. You can watch someone live in a housing project in a dangerous neighborhood, or you can live there yourself with tme for a year.
You can draw the map, or you can actually drive on the roads you put on the map . . . .
So many of those who are out to reform education have never taught, don’t have credentials and degrees in education, have never sent their own children to a public school, have never had to deal with poverty themselves (most but not all), and have never had to deal directly with the poverty of other people’s children, let alone the challenges of English Language Learners. They have also never experienced the educational process first hand under NCLB or RTTT and the new APPR.
I would love for one of this wealthy individuals to teach in a public system for 2 to 3 years, go millions of light years above and beyond their contracts (staying late after work, taking work home every night and on weekends, calling parents, running parent workshops every week or twice a month, spending their own money – within a working class budget to accurately reflect the reality of the majority – , write grants, mentor other teachers, write curriculum, turn-key train faculty, meet with parents periodically and systemically to counsel them academically about their child, make home visits, participate in literacy and math fairs, etc . . . the list is endless.
Then after this person does well enough in hi\s/her observations, well enough on local assessments, but does not do well enough on standardized assessments and receives an “unsatisfactory” rating, then I’d love to see how his person reacts.
THAT would be powerful.
Another social experiment would be for this same person to teach in an excellent private school for one year and then teach in a high needs, low income public school, some of the population of which is English language learners. The person would be filmed for a year in each, or at least interviewed on film about his/her observations and experiences.
This is the way for philanthropists to absorb, with their own flesh, blood, and DNA, the realities about their money and the policies that drive their giving.
Jamie Johnson, one of the children from the Johnson and Johnson products company, made a MUST SEE documentary called “Born Rich” in which he interviews the children of very wealthy philanthropists, including Georgina Bloomberg and the grandaughter of Warren Buffet (who is alleged to have become estranged with her as a result of participating in the film and giving her candid views of what it’s like growing up with that much money).
Jamie himself was chewed out by his father and his family’s financial adviser on film for talking too much about money and that it was “vulgar and indiscrete to talk about one’s lifestyle and views about money”. Jamie’s intention behind the film was to expose the vast privileges of the rich.
He did not berate capitalism; neither do I. But what he did do was show how the playing field is so uneven, tilted and renders an effect on American life that promotes and facilitates far more inequity and unfairness than trickle down economics can ever correct.
“Born Rich” was a rare inside glimpse into a world that pervades the 99% like never before but that shuts out the 99% at the same time.
I commend Jamie and other like him . . . If he is reading this, perhaps he can contact Peter Buffet and explain to him, as Diane has so accurately asserted, that giving 2 billion dollars to the Gates Foundation is hurting the education of the children of the populist masses.
Correction: ” . . one of THESE wealthy individuals . . . ”
I rue the day WordPress decided not to include an edit feature. . .
@RobertRendo: I so agree about putting the megamillionaire “philanthropists” in a school system and having them teach. Bill Gates and Eli Broad should be the first two “mega millionaire” teachers and Arne Duncan for good measure and with Bloomberg and Buffet to follow! Start them off in a private “Sidwell Friends” type of school for a year and then have them teach in one of DC or NYC’s most challenging title one schools for another year. And while we are at it.. make them put their money where their mouths have been for far too long! Let’s make their millions dependent upon their title one students’ test scores. If the scores are not high enough… they lose their money. Oh add this too… if their students are not able to read a literary book and discuss it and write about it in a coherent way.. forget the tests.. they lose the money too! If their students get “proficient” science scores but cannot apply it to real world settings… they too will lose their millions!
Artsegal,
An interesting and predictable scenario indeed that you’ve presented.
Unfortunately, another editorial piece where we are not allowed to comment. On top of that the new editorial is another tribute to Bloomberg. The NYTimes wants the next mayor to be a clone of Bloomberg. We seem to be getting these editorials once a week.
And, the story on de Blasio was really a story about Weiner. Instead of highlighting deBlasio like it did Quinn, we got a convoluted article.
btw, Weiner’s campaign manager has resigned because he too was disgusted by the behavior. And Dowd had a pretty good piece on Huma.
I’d almost (almost!) settle for them paying the same percentage of taxes as the rest of the non-billionaires in society (though I expect they’d probably find yet another way to recoup them on the backs of the working class).
They may feel wealth guilt- but apparently not enough to slow up their profit taking, blind eye to the destruction they cause, or to feel like committing an equitable amount of their wealth to the betterment of others.
It’s an imperfect world. Most starting points for good discussions don’t have an unequivocally good or bad starting point.
As a SpecEd teacher once said to me after a SpecEd departmental meeting [I am paraphrasing of course]: “How many opinions do you have when you get 10 SpecEd teachers in a meeting?” Answer: “11 or 12. Until so-and-so walks into the room—then it’s 13 or 14!”
She said this in a tone that indicated she was as speaking both in jest and seriously—with a trace of irritation. Then she laughed.
Whatever prompted Peter Buffett’s opinion piece, I thank him for stating his opinions in clear and direct terms. Compared to what Sen. Rand Paul and other politicians stated today on HuffPostEd, it is a breath of fresh air. And, IMHO, it helps move the ed debates along in a healthy direction.
Really.
Not Rheeally.
🙂
Peter’s backlash on his “epiphany” on philanthropy is a personal one. He can’t stand the fact that his father acquired a new adopted son (B. Gates). But I sure like the direction he is taking that reveals exploitation of people for non-profit organizations. My challenge is: So what is Peter going to do pass the rhetoric?
To quote a fellow reader (forgive me for not remembering the name . . . was it the articulate Duane Swacker or Reading Teacher?), but much of philanthropy has turned into what Michael Fiorillo refers to as “malanthropy” and what I recall as “villainthropy”.
Charity is hit or miss. You either get it or you don’t, you either feel its benefits or you are abandoned out in the cold dark chasm of unfulfilled needs, even when you are there helping yourself and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
The way you fulfill the needs of the masses is you do what Japan, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Northern Europe have done (all in varying degrees, but far more than the United States): you form public trusts and you tax the citizenry fairly and equitably – and that includes a progressive, graduated tax system for the rich as well – to pay for the infrastructure of those public trusts.
These trusts would include healthcare, housing, public education, roads and water systems, and transportation. You do NOT form public-private partnerships that use venture and ROI philanthropy to solve the needs of the masses. You certainly do not use private philanthropy alone in place of government, unless you want to live in some Edwardian/Dickensian era again. . . . . .Well, we sort of are anyway at this point.
We have the resources even in this crappy economy.
DO we (citizenry and elected officials) have the will?
I heard an NPR piece about Peter that describes his work on farming projects that gives back extensively to communities. It’s funded by money from his dad. I don’t think he has as much wealth as his dad, but works running this foundation his dad funds. I am sure he lives quite comfortably, but he sounds like he seriously thinks about the big picture and how his project can benefit others. That was how he came off in the NPR story anyway.
Bridget,
I think Peter is earnest . . . . and NPR is a mixed bag, too mixed for my taste. They receive a glob of funding from the Waltons and Bill and Melinda Gates.
Peter’s best bet to is limit his acquisition of this type of knowledge by spending longitudinal time with the middle and working class. . . shadowing them almost voyeuristically but with their cooperation and permission . . . .
Peter Buffet, if you’re reading this, what do you think?
Do these two statements seem contradictory to anyone else?
“I’m really not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism.”
“It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code.”
Isn’t capitalism and its unrelenting pursuit of profit the operating system here?
The simple statement that he’s “not calling for an end to capitalism” shows that, while he does want change, he doesn’t want that change to alter the system that’s allowed him “occupy some seats [he] never expected to sit in,” as he says.
It seems clear that Peter feels guilty and knows there’s a problem. But it doesn’t seem like he feels guilty enough to give up his own privilege (and the privilege enjoyed by his friends and family) in order to fight for true change.
Hi all – thanks for the great post and comments. It’s been sort of amazing to see the “release” that the op-ed was mid-wife to… I can’t seem to find a better way to express the experience.
I had to respond to a couple of things (even though I know it’s probably crazy to respond to comments… folks here seem friendly and like-minded).
I’m pretty sure it actually is an end to capitalism – certainly as we know it. I just wanted to put a line in that was provocative. Something that would illicit other responses.
The NPR piece was on my brother, Howard. But we’re cut from the same cloth.
We’ll continue to try new things – but also stick with ideas long enough to see how they work for the people we’re working with (as opposed to being stuck on some outcome that we define). And partnering with and (really) listening to people “on the ground” – whatever that may mean in context (I’ve heard a few versions of that here) is imperative.
Finally.. my “epiphany” did not come from some frustration that my dad is friends with Bill Gates. 🙂
Thanks again for the thoughtful post and replies.