Last week, more than a year after asking his Twitter followers for philanthropic ideas, Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announced an initial plan. They said they would donate $2 billion to a new foundation meant to address homelessness and improve preschool education. The gift is a tiny portion of the Bezoses’ total wealth — estimated by Forbes Magazine to be $162 billion — but the foundation’s name, the Bezos Day 1 Fund, suggests there will be lots more to come.
The question of how Bezos should spend his money is a good one, but a better place to start might be: Why does he have so much money in the first place? What does his fortune tell us about the economic structure and impact of the tech industry, the engine behind his billions? And, most important, what responsibility comes with his wealth — and is it any business of ours what he does with it?
The answer: Of course it’s our business.
Bezos’ extreme wealth is not only a product of his own ingenuity. It is also a function of several grand forces shaping the global economy. One is the unequal impact of digital technology, which has reduced costs and brought conveniences to many, but whose direct economic benefits have accrued to a small number of superstar companies and their largest shareholders. There is also the effect of labor and economic policy, which in the United States has failed to keep up with, and often only aggravated, the problem of tech-driven concentrations of wealth.
Once you understand the forces pushing Bezos’ fortune ever skyward, one strategy for how he might spend it emerges above all others. “I think the most important thing he can do with his money is to become a traitor to his class,” said Anand Giridharadas, author of a new book, “Winners Take All.”
In the book, Giridharadas argues that the efforts of the superwealthy to change the world through philanthropy are often a distraction from the planet’s actual problems. To truly fix the world, Bezos ought to push for policy changes that would create a more equal distribution of the winnings derived from a tech-driven economy, Giridharadas said.
“He should address himself to America’s deepest problems in ways that would demand sacrifice from the winners of our age — making a difference at the expense of their opportunity to make a killing,” Giridharadas said.
There’s another way of putting this: Jeff Bezos should spend his vast fortune pushing for a society where no one can ever become as rich as Jeff Bezos is now.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on Bezos’ philanthropic plans.
Those who are fans of Amazon may argue with the notion that Bezos’ wealth represents a problem and a responsibility. After all, the 54-year-old is an uncommonly gifted businessman. He acquired his wealth legally and in the most quintessentially American way: He had a wacky idea, took a stab at it, stuck with it through thick and thin, and, through patient, deliberate, farsighted risk-taking, created one of the most innovative companies of the modern era.
But Bezos isn’t just rich. He is growing unprecedentedly rich — rich enough that his wealth, by itself, illustrates a new economic reality.
A year ago, when he first called for philanthropy ideas, Bezos’ fortune was estimated at only $80 billion, putting him an embarrassing second on the rich-person list, behind Bill Gates.
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