Peter Singer On the Buffett Club: Billionaires Behaving Beneficently (Or Not)
Peter Singer, the ethics provocateur best known for his book "Animal Liberation,'' is happy to hear that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and 16 other billionaires have signed the Giving Pledge: They promise to give at least 51% of their money to charity, during their lives or at death.
But Singer says that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates -- the cofounders of the Giving Pledge -- don't go far enough. We should push them, he adds. And he's got a message for everyone else: It's not just up to the upper crust.
I asked him why some billionaires have joined the club and others have not.
What's the pattern? Buffet has gone down the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest people and approached many. Fifty-seven billionaires have said yes -- George Lucas, Michael Bloomberg, T. Boone Pickens. And others apparently, have said no or not yet -- Michael Dell, Nike's Phil Knight, hedge funder John Paulson, the family behind Walmart.
A very interesting question. You should ask those families. Given the amount of good they could be doing with their immense assets, we have a right to ask why they think that they need more than $500 million for themselves.
Some say that philanthropy is a private matter. They may be giving away just as much as the Pledge group, but don't want to broadcast it. Is there a rebuttal to that?
Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example.
Maybe there are other issues. Would some of the wealthiest hesitate to align themselves with the Pledge group for political reasons?
I have no idea if that is a factor, but doing good should not be a partisan political issue.
But you think there's a right way to give and a wrong way.
My major difficulty with the Giving Pledge is that it does not specify the purposes for which the money should go. If one of these billionaires decides to donate to have a new opera house built, that shouldn't be regarded as fulfilling the pledge. With more than 20,000 children dying every day from avoidable poverty-related causes, and with the climate of our planet changing in ways that could soon become uncontrollable, we have more urgent needs.
You're quoted in a Giving Pledge press release. Are you affiliated with them?
No, but my own pledge, at www.thelifeyoucansave.com, tries to do something similar, for people of lesser means.
What should people of lesser means give?
I'd like to see everyone who has more than they need -- and that means everyone who can afford to buy bottled water [even though] the water that comes out of the tap is safe to drink -- take a pledge to give a modest percentage of their income to help the world's poorest.
What's a modest percentage? Or, as Stephen Colbert
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We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives.
How will we know if the philanthropy culture is indeed changing?
We will see if people's expectations change -- if they come to believe that if you have more than you need, you can't really live ethically unless you also contribute to making the world a better place.
Do you have a problem with the whole philanthropy model? Should these generous folks be working instead to fix the system -- say, change the tax code, or spend more money in the form of wages while they're making it?
Some of them are working to change the tax code -- Warren Buffett for instance has spoken out against the abolition of the estate tax. But as for "fixing the system," it's not easy to say what would achieve that. Philanthropy of the sort Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett support -- directed especially to measures that will help the 1.4 billion living in extreme poverty -- is a very direct and concrete way of reducing suffering and making the world a better place.
This interview was edited and condensed.