No. of Recommendations: 4
All of that said, I don’t believe that philanthropy is the answer to societal problems.
@elonmusk
has done more for the world with his for-profit enterprises than any philanthropist ever.
In my experience, many if not most philanthropic organizations are inefficient and/or ineffective. For-profit organizations are vastly more effective in addressing societal problems than non-profits.
Therefore, in my view, philanthropy should be focused on addressing societal issues for which there is no current for-profit solution.
Philanthropy requires you succeed at capitalism first. Musk is still in the building the empire stage and may never transition to philanthropist.
That being said, philanthropy exists all around you. The first insulin was invented and given to the world. Didn't last long and capitalism figured out how to charge us $2k a month. So how was capitalism good at solving societies problems there? We've totally botched the medical area with for profit hospitals. Fortunately a good portion of them are charitable - isn't that a form of participatory philanthropy?
So we have for-profit drug companies - where executives set the prices on the drug you may need. For-profit hospitals - where you can be blind sided in an operation by one or more of the attending Doctors not being in network. Finding out that the urgent out of care facility you went to isn't considered to be urgent care by your insurance carrier. Finding out that the authorized hospital overseas is a dilapidated building that needs thorough cleaning and repair - but the Docs seem OK, they just used the wrong size screws for your internal brace.
Not everything should be for profit and the profit should be regulated in some industries.
I still remember checking out the Hardy Boys from the philanthropically donated public library as a kid.
I still assert that the government should be able to partly own some industries like Norway owns Stat oil (Equinor). We don't have to hand over all profit to the elites and only do things that operate at a loss.
