Big Philanthropy: A Deeper Analysis

Indians are incredibly generous. In 2018, almost 72% of Indians donated money for charities. India is home to many NGOs that help poor people and almost all of them receive money for donations. According to some, people in 2018 on an average donated nearly Rs 5000.

But the donations must be seen in another way. They are a symptom of wealth inequality. 30% of all donations this year, are supposed to have come from the top 0.5% of people. The richest 1% of Indians own 58.4% of the nation's wealth. The richest 10% own about 80.7%. But obviously, the rich would not want the middle-class people to rebel against them like seen in history and so you see them do donations. And the numbers are high as much as Rs 500 crore. It makes us feel good when good things happen to people who deserve them. Scholarships, low-income housing and school facilities, rich people donate to these sort of charities so that nobody can say that they are hoarding money and squashing poor people under their feet.

But there is a lot more than what meets the eye. We always talk about regulating how rich people make money, but almost never for one-second wait to think about how they spend their money. But we should because by giving away so much, they justify being so rich, to begin with.

On paper, the idea of rich people trying to change the world seems to be brilliant. But what goes on under the wide system of big philanthropy.

Now the charity is obviously good. When you donate Rs 2000 to an NGO, you are really doing something good. But big philanthropy is not the same as the donations middle-class people do.

Section 80G of the Income Tax Act offers a tax deduction on certain charitable institutions. Also for income tax to be charged, you must save the money. So, by donating huge amounts to organisations that are sometimes under their support, they increase their expenses and thus pay lower taxes. But the problem is that all of this is legal with very little oversight. But just because it's legal does not mean you should do it. You can do it, but please don't.

Rich people show us that they are trying to solve some major problems. But they are the reason that we have this problem in the first place. The world has collectively made decisions that favour the Ratan Tata's of our world rather than the millions of kids he helps. Think about all those rich people do. They funded climate change deniers, profited from propaganda and also weaponised propaganda. Their donations have blinded us to all of that and created a smokescreen which allows them to keep on with their shady stuff.

Rich people also think that they re smarter than the rest, which makes them think that they should try and change the world in their ways(Animal Farm, anyone?).

Some of them argue that the government is inefficient and we should not give our hard-earned money to them. Instead, the rich people make us think that they should be the one to shape the world in a way that they think is right. But just because they have succeeded in one filed does not mean that they will do so in any field thought of.

But whenever we talk about philanthropy one name always crops up: Bill Gates. He has done so much for people in Africa, that they are almost too many to name. The good thing that he does can't be removed. However when we give him charge of education policies the power becomes too much. For example, in his home state Bill Gates steamrolled, using his money, to make sure charter schools stayed open. Which is and should be unconstitutional. When asked if he would ever run for President, he responded by saying that he has almost as much power as any political party and that he will never be term-limited to eight years. But Bill Gates is actually the best-case scenario. But we do know that there are in fact many evil billionaires. People who do illegal stuff in secret. They can weaponise their philanthropy to fund people in the government who deny climate change.

At the end of the day, we cannot stop people from spending money in the way they like. They pretend to be like Bruce Wayne. They cause problems by the day in how they run their company and then at night they become Batman and pretend to be the solution.

There are always going to be rich people and they will donate. Nice. But using it to shape our world without our consent? Not remotely nice.

The only way to stop them is to prevent them from being so rich in the first place. And the only way to do so is to tax them.

Otherwise, well we are doomed.