The Giving Pledge

As early as October 2008, in the immediate aftermath of the credit crunch, The Economist provocatively expressed concerns regarding the health and viability of the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism when it ran a printed issue about “Saving the system.” Repeatedly columnists suggested a “fatigue” of the American brand of capitalism and claimed “the Anglo-Saxon model ha[d] taken a knock” ( The Economist, 2009). The paper later contended that the grievances of the Occupy Wall Street movement were “legitimate and broader than previous rages against the machine” ( The Economist, 2011). In the chorus of outcries about the shortcomings of capitalism and denunciations of the inequalities it had failed to breach, also emerged the even less anticipated voices of capitalists themselves. Indeed, Warren Buffett, who was incidentally the wealthiest billionaire on Forbes’ list for 2008, ¹ the crisis peak year, soon argued that, in the wake of the recession and efforts toward recovery, more sacrifices should be demanded from “the super rich,” or as he had it, “my super rich friends.”

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks…. [Last year] what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income – and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

(Buffett, 2011) Interestingly, as protesters marched on Wall Street and Zucotti Park, the wealthy of America remained vocal and “occupied”, for their part, the public discourse. While Buffett was instrumental in denouncing the unfair nature of the American capitalist model and its role in the unraveling of the crisis, Bill Gates also contributed to this conversation. His take on the debate was not a call for congressional action and increased taxation, but a suggestion that philanthropy was an appropriate means to counter capitalism’s failures (Ben-Ami, 2013). Buffett and Gates may both be viewed as the very embodiments of the financial and entrepreneurial aspects of American capitalism; they are figures easily identifiable for the general public. What’s more, they have built corporate empires before stepping down, at least for Gates, to focus on their charitable foundations. ²