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The limits of philanthropy?
Unless the world is in for a nasty spill, the richest people likely will become even richer over the generations. Other than buying out or bribing African dictators, what else might the truly rich do with their money?
1. Build artificial islands, create jobs there, take in immigrants, and experiment.
2. Change their names to "Nemo," and hire mercenaries to intervene when Darfur-like situations get out of control.
3. Finance excellent movies just for the heck of it.
4. Send out self-replicating, solar powered von Neumann probes to explore the galaxy and look for life, or perhaps seed life (did anyone get a tax deduction for doing Earth?).
5. Create galactic spectacles which are obviously the work of intelligent beings, to advertise our presence to other civilizations, or future civilizations, throughout the galaxy.
What else?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 27, 2006 at 06:51 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Replicate the great barbecue restaurants of the South in more densely populated places, also just for the heck of it.
Posted by: fasolamatt at Oct 27, 2006 8:42:40 AM
I think there's a large and growing space for nonprofit activity in news media. Local coverage is already awful in most places, as is coverage of state govt and of what local reps do in Congress. The Internet, which is causing problems for so many newspapers, means the cost of delivering news has plummetted, and there are many good models of longstanding, incl Christian Sci Monitor, St. Pete Times in Fla. and, in the UK, the Guardian. Imagine a nonprofit version of the old States News Service covering Congress, to cite a single creative example.
Posted by: Dan at Oct 27, 2006 8:43:43 AM
Pay music collectors to go out and make the best possible recordings of all the old traditional musicians still out there, then make the results freely available over the Internet.
Posted by: Sol at Oct 27, 2006 8:51:23 AM
Buy organs from the poor or clone themselves for organs to extend their life up to 150 years or more.
Posted by: joan at Oct 27, 2006 8:52:58 AM
3b. Finance really bad movies for the heck of it.
Posted by: Jason Voorhees at Oct 27, 2006 8:54:23 AM
Do what the rich in Europe used to do: Build castles.
Posted by: Jeff at Oct 27, 2006 8:59:04 AM
1.b. Adopt-a-village in the global south with results widely advertised. "This village/district/state adopted by Bill Gates: malaria down 75%; infant mortality = Peoria, IL; unemployment = Massachusetts; return on human capital 15%/yr; corruption index down from 42 to 17 in four years."
Posted by: Jonathan at Oct 27, 2006 9:10:02 AM
Invest in the poor parts of the U.S.
Fund research in orphan diseases.
Pay down the U.S. national debt.
Posted by: Ted Craig at Oct 27, 2006 9:36:53 AM
Create a collective bargaining corporation, and present a contract to the United Nations and each of their respective governments for political autonomy, then build a nation out in International waters where they pay themselves taxes and can serve as the headquarters for multinational corps.
Since they're the stockholders, they make the rules of this new world.
Posted by: Sunny Molini at Oct 27, 2006 9:37:47 AM
Why not do something commercial and cool, like build the infrastructure to mine deuterium from the moon and solve our energy problems for a long, long time.
Posted by: JM at Oct 27, 2006 10:19:24 AM
Patronize the arts and ultimately make their collections accessible to the public.
Posted by: Guest 15 at Oct 27, 2006 10:42:40 AM
Ted. You must be kidding about the national debt. Do you really think that people who have created billions of dollars of value can't think of anything better to do with it than what the feds would think of!?
How rich are we talking here?
How about creating economic value by buying monopolistic companies and lowering prices below the monopoly price, preferably towards a continually shrinking cost of production.
On a related note, buy Mickey Mouse and other ancient IP and stop the extension of copywrite.
Buy up IP of all sorts and return it to the public domain.
Invent and popularize forms of conspicuous consumption with positive externalities.
Tesla Motors rather than Hummer, for instance, or Kobe Beef instead of veal.
Posted by: michael vassar at Oct 27, 2006 10:53:30 AM
Write me a check.
Posted by: matt at Oct 27, 2006 11:19:45 AM
Build a new, exceedingly well endowed (comparable to Harvard) university devoted solely to academic excellence. Admission to be based almost solely on rigorous testing (far beyond the SAT), race blind, with low/zero tuition. Strong, unavoidable core curriculum with tough classes in math, science, english, history, and economics. No grade inflation. No AP credit. Approximately 5-10% of the class should face a real risk of flunking out. Advanced placement only for those who've taken ultra rigorous college courses -- such as getting an A in high school in a UChicago math class.
No top level sports -- only real amateur play. No legacy admissions. A few extra generous merit scholarships with stipends for the genius applicants. Money available to all undergrads to do a research project every summer.
No politically correct majors. Narrow but focused PhD programs. A separate Political Economy Dept that pulls out intersting Economists and PoliSci profs doing interesting research that does not involve formal modelling.
Give out $1 million and $10 million awards every few years to top researchers that are underappreciated. $100,000 prizes for grad students doing state of the art, risky research.
On average, the highest salaries in America, but bonuses to the superstars. Yet all professors required to teach undergrads.
Posted by: jn at Oct 27, 2006 11:29:28 AM
Purchase a small Eastern European country for the diplomatic immunity, and also so I can put a "von" between my first and last names. Build a suit of armor with incredible powers. Use these resources in my endless quest to defeat my arch-enemies and conquer the world.
More prosaically, fund critical infrastructure projects that would open up bottlenecks but haven't been built for political reasons: power plants in India, 2nd Avenue subway in NY, etc.
Purchase the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and move them to a huge untapped market that will appreciate having a professional baseball team: Mexico City.
Posted by: Thelonious_Nick at Oct 27, 2006 12:07:06 PM
Buy a sportts team, spend billions on attracting superstars... oh wait, thant's not new... Abramovich and Steinbrener already do that...
Posted by: economister at Oct 27, 2006 12:15:16 PM
how about using that money here on earth, like distributing it some? galactic spectacles indeed...
Posted by: The Tsunami at Oct 27, 2006 12:58:00 PM
I like the idea of building an artificial island etc., but would you also need a military establishment to defend it? If it is within 200 miles of shore it will be claimed by the shoreward country. Even if it is out in the middle of an ocean(much more difficult to build)it will be an almost irrestible target. The nation the builder is a citizen of will almost certainly claim it. And of course almost anyone else who thinks they can.
Posted by: lee at Oct 27, 2006 1:10:58 PM
Finance a project to make car go on salt water. We have a lot of it, and it would solve the rising of the oceans problems, along with most of global warming.
Posted by: juliette at Oct 27, 2006 2:33:41 PM
Buy the rights to the song "Happy Birthday" (owned by Paul Mccartny, I think), and release it into the public domain. Then chain restraurants could sing that simple song, instead of their annoying, crass varients that interupt otherwise pleasant meals.
Posted by: Dave at Oct 27, 2006 3:25:33 PM
Build pleasure gardens and charge a nominal entry fee.
Subsidize a world-class touring opera company for the U.S.
Posted by: Guest 15 at Oct 27, 2006 3:33:24 PM
Fund a single, full-text-searchable database of ALL published scholarship in ALL disciplines.
Posted by: Guest 15 at Oct 27, 2006 3:37:38 PM
Isn't the point of this blog that no one does anything just for the heck of it? Why the sudden desire for that?
That said:
-Replicate the great barbecue restaurants of the South in more densely populated places, also just for the heck of it.
These exist in old Northern Industrial cities, just not in the gentrified areas. They came along with many other aspects of Southern culture in the great migration of blacks in the 20th century and they are disappearing as blacks migrate back. Journey into some of the less fashionable areas of a city and you will find them.
- Buy organs from the poor or clone themselves for organs to extend their life up to 150 years or more.
Hasn't the obvious awfulness of this idea been established already under the euphemistic title of moral hazard.
- Finance really _ movies for the heck of it.
Apart from the just for the heck of it part, this already happens, from Mel Gibson to Michael Moore's backers to "What the Heck do we know" there are plenty of movies of varying quality being funded, but just for the heck of it is never going to happen.
- Pay down the U.S. national debt.
They already do, the rest of us just run up more debt.
- Build artificial islands, create jobs there, take in immigrants, and experiment.
Isn't this already happening in Dubai (http://www.theworld.ae/)? The only difference is they've decided they don't like to live too close to the immigrants so they ship them on and off the island as needed.
- Build pleasure gardens and charge a nominal entry fee.
Yellowstone National Park brought to you courtesy of the Rockefellers?
Except for the galactic spectacles part (give Mr. Musk a little time...) I don't see much that isn't already happening somewhere, including running portions of Europe or Africa as private fiefdoms.
Then again it's really hard to figure out what I'd do with tycoon like levels of wealth, perhaps grab a large Trojan asteriod, bore it out (using the bored out mass to move it into Earth orbit) and turning it into a private space station. Maybe build a city near an undersea volcano (you need the volcano for a power source). Go Norway one better and get a well preserved DNA sample of all lifeforms on Earth (bacteria and viruses may be problematic because of their pace of change but I care more about the macroscopic cute and fuzzy stuff anyway). Get some AI and robotics types to build me a professional football, basketball, soccer team.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are wealthy people pursuing the last option. But given the difficulty of thinking of something to do with great wealth that isn't already being done perhaps that's a sign that the difference between the truly wealthy and the rest of us is they have better imaginations since they thought of it first?
Given the flood of wealth into professional sports entertainment, from Mark Cuban to Bob Johnson to Dietrich Mateschitz, maybe they know something we don't since they don't seem as interested in making movies as we'd like them to be.
Posted by: Ssezi at Oct 27, 2006 4:06:41 PM
I said: "- Build pleasure gardens and charge a nominal entry fee."
Ssezi said: "Yellowstone National Park brought to you courtesy of the Rockefellers?"
I reply: Yellowstone wasn't exactly the type of thing I had in mind, but yes, by all means do more of that.
Posted by: Guest 15 at Oct 27, 2006 4:26:34 PM
Fund research projects in a tax-free research park established in a geographic area far away from any political instability, i.e. New Zealand. Specifically focus on nanotechnology and biotechnology to reduce material costs, energy related issues such as transportation, storage and minimizing byproducts, plus get a fusion reactor up and running, and robotics/automation to reduce labor costs.
Also give $30 million to Dr. Moller to finally get his Skycar off the grown.
Tell NYC that you will fund a 30yr BOT project to finally create a decent rail link from Manhattan to all 3 airports.
Privatize and run Amtrak on the stipulation that you can upgrade the rail infrastructure on the Eastern Seaboard and other higher population dense areas of the country to run high-speed trains at +150mph. There is no reason why France and Japan should have faster trains than us. Also shut down passenger train service to low-population areas, i.e. North Dakota.
Fund ubiquetous wireless broadband.
Work on providing low cost, crime free housing solutions while minimizing the disincentive for market driven development.
Posted by: asiequana at Oct 27, 2006 4:30:02 PM
Meant: "...off the ground."
Posted by: asiequana at Oct 27, 2006 4:35:15 PM
This is probably (by definition) the wrong place to ask this question, but: if you had a $100M to free copyrighted content, what would it be?
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2006-October/045481.html
This doesn't seem to have been discussed much (on my blogroll at least) but the first comments I've seen about it focus on lobbying for reform instead of answering the question.
Posted by: Chi at Oct 27, 2006 4:42:19 PM
I like jn's university. I'd stick it smack dab in Appalachia, preferably on the border of two states, let them compete for incentivizing companies (low taxes, low regulations, right to work state etc.) to locate in their state to hire the graduates.
The infamous route 128 high tech belt in MA didn't pop up out of nowhere, nor out of government policies. It was the result of gobs of captive private universities, especially MIT, in the Boston area.
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Oct 27, 2006 6:08:03 PM
buy France and replace it with a big monkey zoo?
Posted by: liberty at Oct 27, 2006 10:26:27 PM
1) Dubai, seconded.
2) Probably more Bill Gates Fund type things instead.
3) Supporting fine art in general will almost certainly continue, yes...
4&5) Read less SF.
...6) Yet bigger & more expensive parties and weddings.
7) Funding things that appealed to them as kids. Nowadays it's rockets and sports teams.
We might see attempts to do fusion or build a university like jn describes, but neither would work.
Fusion advocates need to learn more about bremsstrahlung, neutronicity, and reaction cross-sections. Technology is not so hard, but perspective is so rare...
People who advocate "genius schools" need to come to understand that prodigies are rarely great achievers (possibly excepting sports and music?) and that genius simply cannot be manufactured. This sort of thing has been tried many times and never works. For some reason, though there are many more people around today, the amount of genius around seems to be constant.
Posted by: bhauth at Oct 28, 2006 1:32:44 AM
Create a foundation centered not around a discipline or a disease, but which has the purpose of funding research into controversial topics.
Posted by: Tingy Wah at Oct 28, 2006 10:53:45 AM
An acquaintance of Tyrone just emailed me a suggestion:
"Give several hundred thousand dollars to every African-American adult in order to put the whole reparations issue to bed. Maybe scale the amount awarded based on how long the recipient's family has been in the U.S."
Posted by: Guest15 at Oct 28, 2006 11:10:26 AM
Definitely #1 (though you could just buy and island - though maybe a floating artificial island would be useful) with #2 as one of the goals. Model it on Silicon Valley and Aldous Huxley's "Island" - highly (liberally) educated population, high-tech paradise. I won't hazard too many guesses at what the society would look like, because the whole point is that such a population would decide for themselves how their society would evolve, but I submit it'd be more humane and impressive than anything else we've seen.
Posted by: BC at Oct 28, 2006 5:18:03 PM
Fight aging, of course.
Posted by: Mike Linksvayer at Oct 28, 2006 7:55:35 PM
Hire an all-mercenary army and start a private war.
Build a burm around all of kansas, fill it with wat and stock it with trout.
Start largest investment project in mexico to give potential immigrants a
reason to stay.
Build a large mirror to cover most of canada to reflect the sun's rays to
counteract global warming.
Pay Trump $1 billion or so to just shut the $%!&£ up and go away already!
Blow it all in one roulette spin, but get some free drinks in the process.
Start a company that buys medical patents and gives it away free in emerging
economies.
Create a national chain of hydrogen gas stations and just wait.
Fund every crazy process that promises to:
reduce dependence on fossil fuels
combat global warming.
Posted by: glenn at Oct 30, 2006 10:55:25 AM
More specific then just helping a poor section of the country, I'd fund the schools of the American Indian College Consortium and reservation primary and secondary schools to the level state schools are funded, with the goal of raising the employment and wages on the reservations to the national average over a 25 year period. There are 32 tribal colleges and universities serving a total of about 30,000 students, 85 percent of whom live at or below the poverty level. The schools are located mostly on economically depressed, isolated Indian reservations.
Posted by: clw at Oct 31, 2006 3:40:51 PM
