Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to announce by the end of the summer how he will make use of his vast wealth for charitable purposes. In 1889, Andrew Carnegie wrote two articles for the “North American Review” about the use of great fortunes for the public good. Drawing on those articles, which are often called the Gospel of Wealth, Richard LeBaron, who spent three decades as a U.S. diplomat, imagines what advice Carnegie might offer to Bezos.
Dear Mr. Bezos,
I humbly request that you suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine that I read your tweet last year soliciting ideas for charitable projects as well as your recent tweet advising that your initial decisions will soon be made public.
Before you do, let me share some thoughts.
First, there’s the decision of how much to give. To me, it’s clear that very nearly all of your accumulated wealth should go to the greater good. The “duty of a man of wealth” is to live unostentatiously, provide moderately for his family, and “consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds” to be deployed for the common good in his lifetime.
Very little good has come from passing wealth to future generations, and I stand firmly by my maxim: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” In this regard, you may be surprised to know I am a believer in substantial taxes on large estates, not primarily to allow governments to redistribute these gains but as a means “to induce the rich man to attend to the administration of wealth during his life.” In this connection, I find the much-touted Giving Pledge established by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett well-intentioned but lacking. It fails to go far enough. I cannot give my full admiration to those whose holdings are counted in billions for deciding among themselves that it is a badge of generosity to pledge to donate “the majority of their wealth.” It is a pledge that clearly leaves open the opportunity to retain billions for their personal use and, even if only indirectly, perversely attaches some virtue to doing so.
Does this sort of symbolic generosity adequately address the income inequality and wealth concentration that was marked in my time and has seemingly grown even worse in yours?
And to those who argue that it is primarily their great skill and hard work that produced great fortunes, I say that may be so, and thus the greater good you should do by applying those skills as “a true antidote for the temporary unequal distribution of wealth.”
You, Mr. Bezos, are a steward of your wealth and you, sir, may very well possess the skills and ambition necessary to use your fortune to make life better for millions of people. While you may think that you are still a young man, let me assure you that life is fleeting and unpredictable. (I myself was in my 60s when I began my major philanthropic ventures and could have done much more had I begun sooner.) It will not be an entirely simple matter to use your vast resources for the greater good in your lifetime. It is time to get to it.
Deciding what to support is the more challenging question. You will likely be aware that my own personal experience has “led me to value a free library beyond all other forms of beneficence.”
I had the privilege of supporting the construction of libraries in thousands of communities that took on the task of providing land, maintaining the libraries, and providing annual additions to their collections. It seems to me that libraries continue to play an important role in providing opportunities for learning and would benefit from both your generous support and your particular business skills.
Libraries play two new roles today that could benefit from your attention. Access to the internet has changed the role of libraries, and that access needs protection, expansion, and a greater degree of imagination in its application. As you have stated, we are only beginning to understand the potential of the internet.
Second, public libraries have become a refuge for the homeless. How can these libraries be supported to be a significant part of the solution to homelessness and not just a shelter from the elements? How does the modern free library innovate to become a crucial instrument of social change and opportunity for all in its community?
There is another set of community organizations, now known as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, that was evolving back at the turn of the last century when I supported the growth of libraries.
Much as Mr. Buffett missed the early opportunity to invest in your company, I failed to see the potential of the Boys & Girls Clubs and did not offer them support in their mission to help young people succeed in our society. Today, through more than 4,000 clubs around the country, this organization carries out its mission to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens — a noble and necessary cause.
But while many young people benefit from these educational programs, it is clear that the gap between the poor and the privileged is ever widening.
You might well consider helping bring the Boys & Girls Clubs across the country into a new age in which they can redouble efforts and achieve greater results. This might include support for construction of new facilities using the Carnegie library model of partnership with local communities. It could include helping clubs integrate their efforts more effectively into the knowledge-based economy by supplying new means to obtain access to high-speed internet, especially in internet-poor rural communities.
Like the free library, the Boys & Girls Clubs could be even better instruments of community cohesion and economic opportunity and thus help strengthen our precious democracy.
In my day, there was a need for new universities, and a number of wealthy industrialists, including myself, helped found and support universities that still thrive. Today, however, I would be more cautious in the way I support universities. I am troubled by the practice of wealthy individuals who donate large sums to established universities with large endowments. Putting one’s name on a building is not, in my view, an indicator of informed generosity. And success at fundraising does not seem to me to be the best way to judge the success of a college president.
A much worthier challenge would be to stop talking about the inflated cost of higher education and start doing something about it.
You have already demonstrated your interest in providing resources for students who would otherwise not be able to pursue higher education. Perhaps you could turn your attention to the systemic problems that have transformed higher education into yet another arena of social and economic inequality. No worthy student should lack the resources to attain an education or be weighed down with enormous debt upon graduating.
Finally, while I will not dwell on it, you and your contemporaries need to find a fair and progressive solution to the issues of immigration that bedevil our beloved country. As an immigrant newly arrived with my parents, I started working as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill at the age of 13. This country valued and rewarded my hard work and embraced me as an engaged citizen.
You will no doubt have many good ideas that fit current needs. I hope others might benefit a bit from this modest advice I offer you.
The principles are not reserved for those appearing on lists of wealthy individuals. The reward? At the end, “the still small voice within, which, whispering, tells him that, because he had lived, perhaps one small part of the great world had been bettered just a little.”
Sincerely yours,
Andrew Carnegie
