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為什麽比爾蓋茨的慈善事業是個問題
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-philanthropy-misanthropy/
如果你學會看透蓋茨的公關光環，你就會看到他的貪婪、傲慢和優越感。
蒂姆施瓦布 2023 年 11 月 22 日
比爾蓋茨在新聞發布會上發表講話，宣布一項提高人們對聯合國可持續發展目標認識的計劃。
在過去的二十年裏，成千上萬的新聞報道描述了比爾蓋茨的慷慨。基本上每天，頭條新聞都會提醒我們他的私人基金會的慷慨：這裏一百萬美元，那裏十億美元。對於我們大多數人來說，這些數字都是令人費解的——但它們也有效地讓我們的大腦短路了。關於蓋茨無私慈善行為的片麵性敘述創造了一個危險的神話，誤解了比爾蓋茨的真實身份和他實際在做什麽。
經過二十年的慈善捐贈，比爾蓋茨仍然是地球上最富有的人之一。他擁有 1170 億美元的私人財富（這是在他與梅琳達離婚後，梅琳達的銀行賬戶如今超過 100 億美元）。他還管理著蓋茨基金會 670 億美元的捐贈基金。他控製的 1840 億美元總額超過了蓋茨基金會目前工作的幾乎所有貧窮國家的國內生產總值。
對蓋茨的冷靜分析表明，他不僅是一位慈善家和正直的人，而且也是一位囤積者和守財奴。相對於他巨大的財富，蓋茨捐出的錢隻是一小部分——他不需要這些錢，而且他永遠不可能花在自己身上。所以問題是：為什麽我們不去慶祝蓋茨基金會捐贈的數百萬美元，而不去質疑他沒有捐贈的 1840 億美元？為什麽我們不問：為什麽世界上最慷慨的慈善家一年比一年富裕？
正是這種矛盾定義了蓋茨，他是世界上最容易被誤解的人之一。我們對蓋茨的了解，或者自以為了解的大部分信息都來自蓋茨本人——從他的基金會資助的研究、它讚助的智庫、它承銷的新聞，以及蓋茨已經擴充到 11 個的擴音器。可以說，蓋茨慈善生涯中最有效的方麵是它的公關。而且，可以說，蓋茨基金會最大的受益者是比爾蓋茨本人。
蓋茨基金會強烈宣稱其“底線是拯救生命”，比爾蓋茨也將其描述為他的北極星。 2021 年，當 CNN 詢問他是否會加入傑夫·貝佐斯、理查德·布蘭森和伊隆·馬斯克等億萬富翁的行列，參與太空導彈競賽時，蓋茨大張旗鼓地表示自己置身事外：“直到我們能夠消除瘧疾和肺結核，以及所有這些在貧窮國家如此可怕的疾病之前，這將是我全部的關注點……我確實希望富人能找到方法，將他們的財富回饋給社會，產生巨大的影響。顯然，他們有技能。他們不能，也不應該，想把財富全部花在自己身上。”CNN 從蓋茨基金會獲得了數百萬美元的慈善捐款，但它並沒有質疑蓋茨聲稱的道德權威或億萬富翁的良好作風。如果它從事真正的新聞工作，它至少會提供背景信息。
例如，讓觀眾了解蓋茨在自我致富和財富積累上花費了多少時間和精力，這似乎很重要。通過專注於氣候的投資基金“突破能源”，蓋茨向一家名為斯托克的火箭公司投資。此外，他還擁有豪華酒店四季酒店的多數股權，據報道，他是全美最大的私人農田所有者。最近，蓋茨隨意押注 5 億美元做空特斯拉，公開承認這隻有一個目的：賺錢。
對於一個公開宣稱自己“全心全意”幫助全球窮人的人來說，蓋茨似乎也花了大量時間接受自我吹噓的采訪——通常是與他的私人基金會資助的新聞媒體進行的采訪。在接受蓋茨基金會數百萬美元資助的 BBC 采訪時，他再次回答了一些關於他是否有進入太空的野心的問題，並借此機會宣傳他在地球上的慈善工作。蓋茨指出，隻需 1,000 美元就可以挽救一個孩子的生命，這與他多年來一直宣稱的類似說法如出一轍。從某種程度上來說，將蓋茨的數據分析針對他自己的財富似乎非常公平。根據蓋茨自己的數據，如果他捐出這筆錢，他的 1840 億美元財富可以挽救 1.84 億人的生命。
這個計算，就像蓋茨的許多“數字人”套路一樣，純屬空談。但無論你如何削減數字，蓋茨的巨額財富都可以以深遠的方式幫助世界，例如，如果將其重新分配給窮人作為現金禮物。這不可能通過蓋茨基金會的父親最了解情況、最關心
蓋茨的慈善模式是官僚慈善的典型代表。蓋茨對賦予窮人權力不感興趣，他感興趣的是強加他的解決方案。追蹤蓋茨基金會的資金可以證實這一點。該基金會近 90% 的慈善資金流向了位於富裕國家的組織，而不是他聲稱要服務的貧窮國家。別介意蓋茨基金會的網站上充斥著微笑的有色人種窮人的圖片；實際上，蓋茨模式是資助全球北方的白領機構，以解決全球南方那些穿著達西基、罩袍、紗麗和坎加斯的人的問題。
如今，越來越多的蓋茨預期受益者批評他弊大於利，有些人明確要求他停止幫助。《科學美國人》的一篇專欄文章的標題是“比爾蓋茨應該停止告訴非洲人非洲人需要什麽樣的農業”，該文章由非洲糧食主權聯盟的 Million Belay 和 Bridget Mugambe 撰寫。從撒哈拉以南非洲的農民組織到全球公共衛生專家，再到美國的公立學校教師，批評者指出，蓋茨的慈善運動機會成本高昂，而且留下了巨大的附帶損害。
沒有人選舉或任命蓋茨領導世界——在任何話題上。蓋茨隻是宣稱自己擁有巨額財富，以奪取權力。他已經把手放在世界的杠杆上，試圖根據他自己狹隘的新自由主義意識形態重塑我們如何養活、治療和教育窮人。這位微軟創始人甚至在他的慈善事業中麵臨長期存在的破壞性壟斷權力的指控，因為他已經插上了自己的旗幟，並試圖接管瘧疾研究和健康指標等領域。
很少有詞比“寡頭政治”更能描述這種權力模式——最富有的人擁有最大的發言權。沒有人比蓋茨為使寡頭政治正常化和製度化所做的貢獻更大。蓋茨將他的政治金錢活動打上慈善的幌子——而不是遊說或競選捐款——從而獲得了稅收優惠、無盡的讚譽和公眾的掌聲。慈善事業對我們的“優秀億萬富翁”來說非常非常好。
傑夫·貝佐斯、馬克·紮克伯格和其他數百名億萬富翁都沒有忘記這個教訓，他們承諾追隨蓋茨的腳步，通過慈善事業將他們龐大的私人財富轉化為廣泛的政治權力，無論是重塑氣候政策、重塑美國公立學校，還是影響我們如何監管人工智能的辯論。這使得我們其他人也掌握這一教訓變得更加重要。我們讓蓋茨、貝佐斯和紮克伯格變得非常富有，現在我們又讓這些人通過慈善事業將他們的財富轉化為享有稅收特權的政治權力。這些是我們也可以取消的選擇。但要做到這一點，我們必須學會看穿公關光環。
當超級富豪從事慈善事業時，它不僅會擾亂我們的認知，還會擾亂我們的人性。桌上的金錢誘惑我們陷入危險的目的證明手段的邏輯，在這種邏輯中，我們專注於通過私人財富可以創造的巨大公共利益，而忽略了創造私人財富所造成的已知危害，或它所產生的反民主力量，或手頭的替代方案——最簡單的，通過稅收而不是慈善來重新分配億萬富翁的財富。
更多關於比爾蓋茨的信息
比爾蓋茨給富人捐款（包括他自己）
蒂姆施瓦布蓋茨之家的倒塌？
“慈善”一詞源自希臘語，意為熱愛人類。慈善捐贈是一種愛的行為，而不是權力的行使。捐錢不應該放大統治社會的權力不對稱，而應該瓦解它們。這就是為什麽在很多方麵，蓋茨更應該被描述為一個厭世者——如果他不憎恨他的同胞，那麽他肯定認為自己是高人一等的。蓋茨無視他聲稱要服務的窮人的願望、需求、權利、尊嚴、智慧和才能，這說明他從根本上是用殖民主義的眼光來經營他的慈善帝國。這凸顯了他所能取得的成就的生存極限，也解釋了為什麽蓋茨基金會的成就如此之小。
這並不是說蓋茨的意圖不好，也不是說他的慈善幹預從未幫助過任何人。顯然，蓋茨基金會捐贈的數百億美元有時確實幫助了人們，是的，挽救了生命。但這些勝利充其量也應該被看作是烏雲密布中的一線希望。在某種程度上，我們應該明白，旨在實現真正的人類進步——平等、正義、自由——的人道主義要求我們挑戰不負責任的權力和不合法的領導人，而不是崇拜他們。這意味著比爾·蓋茨是一個問題，而不是解決方案。
在即將到來的選舉中，我們的民主和基本公民權利的命運取決於選票。
如果唐納德·特朗普獲勝，2025 計劃的保守派設計者正計劃在各級政府中將他的威權主義願景製度化。
我們已經看到了一些讓我們既感到恐懼又謹慎樂觀的事件——在整個過程中，《國家報》一直是抵製錯誤信息的堡壘，也是大膽、有原則的觀點的倡導者。我們敬業的作家與卡瑪拉·哈裏斯和伯尼·桑德斯坐下來接受采訪，揭穿了 J.D. 萬斯膚淺的右翼民粹主義訴求，並討論了民主黨在 11 月獲勝的道路。
在我們國家曆史的這個關鍵時刻，像這樣的故事和你剛剛讀到的故事至關重要。現在比以往任何時候都更需要清醒和深入報道的獨立新聞，以理解頭條新聞，並將事實與虛構區分開來。今天捐款，加入我們 160 年的傳承，向權力說真話，提升基層倡導者的聲音。
2024 年將是我們的一生中最具決定性的選舉，我們需要您的支持，以便繼續發布您所依賴的富有洞察力的新聞報道。
蒂姆·施瓦布 (Tim Schwab) 是《比爾蓋茨問題：清算億萬富翁神話》一書的作者。
Bill Gates speaks during a press conference announcing a a plan to increase awareness of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.Thousands of news stories have profiled Bill Gates’s generosity over the last two decades. Essentially every day, headlines remind us of his private foundation’s largesse: a million dollars here, a billion dollars there. These are mind-bending sums for most of us—but they have also effectively short-circuited our brains. The one-sided storytelling about Gates’s selfless philanthropy has created a dangerous mythology that misunderstands who Bill Gates really is and what he is actually doing.
After two decades of philanthropic giving, Bill Gates continues to be one of richest people on the planet. He boasts a private fortune of $117 billion (and that’s after his costly divorce from Melinda, whose bank account today exceeds $10 billion). He also oversees the Gates Foundation’s $67 billion endowment. The combined $184 billion he controls surpasses the gross domestic product of virtually every poor nation in which the Gates Foundation works today.
A sober analysis of Gates shows he is just as worthy of the titles of hoarder and miser as he is philanthropist and mensch. Relative to his vast wealth, Gates is giving away a tiny amount of money—that he doesn’t need and that he could never possibly spend on himself. So the question is: Instead of celebrating the million-dollar gifts his foundation donates, why aren’t we interrogating the $184 billion that Gates isn’t giving away? Why aren’t we asking: How is it that the world’s most generous philanthropist is becoming richer and richer, year over year?
It’s the kind of contradiction that defines Gates, one of the most misunderstood people in the world. Much of what we know about Gates, or think we know, comes from Gates himself—from the research his foundation funds, the think tanks it sponsors, the journalism it underwrites, and the megaphone Gates has cranked up to 11. Arguably the most effective aspect of Gates’s philanthropic career has been its PR. And, arguably, the single biggest beneficiary of the Gates Foundation has been Bill Gates, himself.
The Gates Foundation ferociously claims that its “bottom line is the lives saved,” which Bill Gates also describes as his North Star. Asked by CNN in 2021 whether he would be joining fellow billionaires—Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk—in their missile-measuring race into outer space, Gates made a big show of staying above the fray: “Until we can get rid of malaria and tuberculosis, and all these diseases that are so terrible in poor countries, that’s going to be my total focus.… I do hope that people who are rich will find ways to give their wealth back to society with high impact. Clearly, they’ve got skills. They can’t, or shouldn’t, want to consume it all themselves.”CNN, which receives millions of dollars in charitable donations from the Gates Foundation, did not challenge Gates’s claimed moral authority or good-billionaire routine. If it were engaged in real journalism, it would, at the very least, have offered context.
For a guy who publicly claims that his “total focus” is helping the global poor, Gates also appears to devote considerable time to sitting for self-aggrandizing interviews—often with news outlets that his private foundation funds. Talking to BBC, the recipient of millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, he once again took softball questions about whether he had ambitions to go into space, using the opportunity to trumpet his philanthropic work on Earth. A child’s life can be saved for only $1,000, Gates noted, echoing similar claims he has made for years. It seems more than fair, at a point, to aim Gates’s data analysis at his own wealth. By Gates’s own figures, his $184 billion wealth could save 184 million lives—if he gave that money away.
This calculation, like much of Gates’s “numbers guy” routine, is pure pablum. But however you cut the numbers, Gates’s vast wealth could help the world in far-reaching ways, for example if it were redistributed as cash gifts to the poor. That can’t happen through the Gates Foundation’s father-knows-best, look-at-me brand of bureaucratic philanthropy. Gates isn’t interested in empowering the poor; he’s interested in imposing his solutions. Following the money from the Gates Foundation confirms this. Nearly 90 percent of the foundation’s charitable dollars go to organizations located in wealthy nations, not the poor countries he claims to serve. Never mind that the Gates Foundation’s website is inundated with the images of smiling poor people of color; in practice, the Gates model is funding white-collared bodies in the Global North to fix those wearing dashikis, burqas, saris, and kangas in the Global South.
A growing group of Gates’s intended beneficiaries today criticize him as doing more harm than good, and some have explicitly asked him to stop helping. “Bill Gates Should Stop Telling Africans What Kind of Agriculture Africans Need,” noted the headline of an op-ed in Scientific American, authored by Million Belay and Bridget Mugambe from the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa. From farmer organizations in sub-Saharan Africa to public health experts around the globe to public school teachers in the United States, critics cite the high opportunity costs of Gates’s charitable crusades and the vast collateral damage they leave behind.
o one elected or appointed Gates to lead the world—on any topic. Gates simply asserted his vast wealth to take power. He has put his hands on the levers of the world, trying to remake how we feed, medicate, and educate poor people according to his own narrow neoliberal ideology. The Microsoft founder even faces long-standing allegations of destructive monopoly power in his philanthropic ventures, as he has planted his flag and sought to take over fields like malaria research and health metrics.
There are few words that better describe this model of power—where the richest guy gets the loudest voice—than “oligarchy.” And no one has done more to normalize and institutionalize oligarchy than Gates. By masking his money-in-politics efforts under the banner of charity—instead of, say, lobbying or campaign contributions—Gates commands tax benefits, endless accolades, and public applause. Philanthropy has been very, very good to our “good billionaire.”
This lesson has not been lost on Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and hundreds of other billionaires who have pledged to follow in Gates’s footsteps, turning their vast private wealth into expansive political power through philanthropy, whether it is remaking climate policy, reshaping American public schools, or influencing the debate over how we regulate AI. That makes it all the more important that the rest of us also master this lesson. We have allowed Gates, Bezos, and Zuckerberg to become obscenely wealthy and now we are allowing these men to turn their wealth into tax-privileged political power through philanthropy. These are choices we can also un-make. But to do so, we must learn to see past the PR halo.
When the super-rich engage in charity, it has a way of not just scrambling our cognition, but also our humanity. The dollars on the table tempt us into a dangerous ends-justifies-the-means logic in which we focus on the enormous public goods that can be created through private wealth and ignore the known harms caused in its creation, or the antidemocratic power it engenders, or the alternatives at hand—most simply, redistributing billionaire wealth through taxation instead of philanthropy.
More on Bill Gates
Bill Gates Gives to the Rich (Including Himself)
TIM SCHWAB The Fall of the House of Gates?
The word “philanthropy,” from the Greek, means lover of humanity. A charitable gift is meant to be an act of love, not an exercise of power. Giving away money is not supposed to magnify the asymmetries in power that govern society but to collapse them. And this is why, in many respects, Gates might be better described as a misanthrope—if he does not hate his fellow human, then he certainly views himself as superior. Gates’s disregard for the wishes, needs, rights, dignity, intelligence, and talent of the poor people that he claims to be serving speaks to the fundamentally colonial lens through which he executes his charitable empire. It highlights the existential limits of what he can accomplish, and it explains why the Gates Foundation has achieved so little.
It’s not that Gates isn’t well intentioned, or that his charitable interventions have never helped anyone. Clearly, the tens of billions of dollars the Gates Foundation has given away have helped people at times and, yes, saved lives. But these wins should be viewed, at best, as a thin silver lining in a very dark cloud. At some point, we should understand that humanitarianism aimed at real human progress—equality, justice, freedom—requires us to challenge unaccountable power and illegitimate leaders, not worship them. And that means Bill Gates is a problem, not a solution.
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Tim Schwab is the author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire.
