盖茨与巴菲特真的帮到穷人了吗?

News that Paul Allen has signed onto the Buffet-Gates Giving Pledge has added to hopes for a new age of philanthropy.

If only everyone on the Forbes list signed the pledge to donate half their wealth, charities would get an additional $600 billion to spend. That would go a long way to helping the country's biggest social problems.

Bill Gates, pledging for the poor.

Or would it?

Pablo Eisenberg, senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, argues in a recent essay in the Chronicle of Philanthropy that rather than helping the poor, the Buffet-Gates Pledge might actually make inequality worse in the U.S.

The reason, he says, is that philanthropy by the rich tends to favor the already privileged.

'They give their biggest donations almost exclusively to universities and colleges, hospitals and medical centers, and arts institutions. They rarely make large gifts to social-service groups, grass-roots organizations, or noNPRofit groups that focus on the poor or minorities.'

He added that 'The infusion of additional great sums of money by very wealthy individuals is likely to increase societal inequities, the gap between large and small noNPRofit organizations, and the disparity between privileged and disadvantaged citizens.'

There are exceptions, of course. Much of of Mr. Gates money has gone toward health care and education for the poor. And a recent survey from Giving USA found that giving to arts groups and education declined last year while giving to human services and health were up.

Still, total giving to education remains larger than giving to health and human services. And Mr. Eisenberg explained to me by email that 'Within health, I suspect that the winners were the big established institutions.'

So is less giving the answer? Of course not. Mr. Eisenberg rightly praises the intentions of Mr. Gates and Mr. Buffett. Still, he says that until the focus of philanthropy shifts to better help the poor, more money may only add to the problem of inequality.

'Before going out and lavishly celebrating a new era of 'big giving' by billionaires,' he writes, 'we should carefully calculate the potential for both good and bad and devise ways to avoid what might be unintended consequences of what appears at first blush to be a noble endeavor.'

Do you think philanthropy helps the already privileged?