A Scrooge for Giving Tuesday

It was not that long ago that philanthropy was not only viewed positively but was also supposed to solve all of our problems. In 2009, Mathew Bishop of The Economist gushed in his book Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and other billionaires were parties to a “revival and reinvention of an old tradition that has the potential to solve many of the biggest problems facing humanity today.” In the book's foreword, Bill Clinton, author of his own 2007 paean to charitably supported good works simply entitled Giving, wrote that “at its best, philanthrocapitalism reinforces and amplifies the time, money, skills and gifts given every year by people who are not rich, and it informs and enhances government policies.”