The apparent hang-up here, for billionaire philanthropists who’ve fought against progressive tax reforms like nixing the carried-interest loophole, isn’t just forking over more of their wealth when tax season rolls around -- it’s also the control they cede when taxes are used to deliver justice to the economically underprivileged. In our society, where philanthropists play an outsized role in delivering justice to a select few, most of us have little hope except begging billionaires for money through processes like grant writing — which is essentially speculative mind-reading -- or simply dreaming that someday, like the Morehouse Class of 2019, we’ll be handpicked for the payout of a lifetime.
There’s a reason why Smith’s gift to Morehouse students has the optics of a lottery payout. Philanthropy is, by nature, a lottery.
