Opinion: Peter Buffett on What Giving by the Rich Doesn’t Do

Philanthropist Peter Buffett writes in a highly critical New York Times opinion piece about the limits of what he calls “conscience laundering” by the very wealthy, which aims to address particular health or social problems without tackling the global economic inequality that underpins them.

The co-chairman of the NoVo Foundation and son of billionaire investor and donor Warren Buffett says inequality is increasing even as the nonprofit sector has grown explosively in recent years, and is reinforced by the rising influence of business practices in philanthropy.

“As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to ‘give back,’ ” he writes. He calls instead for philanthropic dollars to be “spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market.”

Howard Husock, a vice president at the Manhattan Institute, offers a pointed dissent to Mr. Buffett’s column in Forbes.