Subject: Re: It's getting very ugly in the real world,
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.

Pretty sure the people of Africa now alive because of polio vaccines and able to see thanks to the eradication of guinea worms and the helps of Doctors Without Borders and similar efforts funded by philanthropy would disagree. Because Elon Musk has given them? Electric cars? Tunnel boring machines?

There is a place for both. Lots of things the private market doesn’t do - and perhaps can’t do. Rebuilding Europe after World War II is one such, although it was funded by the US in a philanthropic effort to put several countries back on stable economics. But there have been similar purely philanthropic efforts across the world: rebuilding much of New Orleans after Katrina came from philanthropic efforts. “The private market” had nothing to do with it.

The education of Native American children where philanthropy has had an impact better that either government (and surely better than) the private market have accomplished. The Plough Foundation has worked on helping Seniors Age In Place, there is no “private market” effort on that which I am aware of. It is often philanthropy which funds research into rare diseases; “the market” can’t be coaxed to spend money on something that doesn’t return big bucks. Likewise Habitat for Humanity puts the dispossessed in houses the private market ignores them completely.

It’s philanthropy which pays to re-investigate crimes for which people have been wrongly imprisoned. Neither the market nor the government wants anything to do with that. “The market” isn’t championing building resilient cities: that’s the Ford Foundation advocating and producing workable plans. There’s more, there’s so much more, but Ackman would rather ignore the successes in favor of another “I can do it better” screed and another bow to “the market is always right” mantra.