February 25, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
During his speech last night to a joint session of Congress, President Obama praised the generosity of Leonard Abess Jr., a Miami banker who gave a $60-million bonus to his 399 workers and 72 former workers.
The president said Mr. Abess represented the “responsibility” Americans want to see from executives at financial institutions. Philanthropy experts are also calling on bankers to be more charitable as a way to quell public anger.
Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, the authors of Philanthrocapitalism, write, “Bankers keep telling us how sorry they are for getting the world into the current economic mess, but the public doesn’t seem to want to accept their apology. To show they mean it, the rich need to discover philanthrocapitalism and start to give back to society — for their sakes and ours.”
In an opinion article published by Reuters, the authors call on corporate leaders to donate a year’s salary to fix social inequities.
“Obviously, critics on the left would dismiss giving a year’s salary as a cheap stunt and argue for higher taxes instead,” they write. “But that is to miss the point. Government is good at some things, such as providing universal access to education and social welfare as a right, but it is weak at innovation and risk-taking.”
Yet there may be some challenges to this push for greater philanthropy.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration’s efforts to curb executive pay at bailed-out banks may hurt donations to charities.
What do you think? Should corporate executives be more philanthropic during the recession? Will efforts to reduce their pay make them less likely to donate? Click on the comment button below to share your views.
