Collective Goodness
You often hear about individuals or organizations doing good things. People like credit. But this is the story of an individual who inherited a great deal of money and then invited multiple people to help her pass out the money. She explains,
My personal situation allows me to act now. That’s why I want to redistribute my wealth back to society. But then the question emerges: how? The first answer is usually to donate … And secondly, it again grants me power that I shouldn’t have. Redistribution must be a process that extends beyond me.
It’s that idea that just because you’re born into a certain family and just because that family has wealth doesn’t mean you know better than people without wealth how to use that money wisely. So she built a council of 50 people (from a random sample of 10,000 Austrian citizens) to decide.
I am placing my trust and 25 million euros in the hands of a citizens’ council. 50 people will be asked to develop ideas for a better distribution of wealth in Austria – and decide what happens to the money.
It’s a neat way to bring together multiple experiences and make the distribution good for most people. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than a single mind deciding where the money goes. It will be interesting to see what they decide.
2 comments
Thank you for sharing. A few of my friends and I were talking about wealth redistribution over the weekend. One friend shared that they believe as white people with economic privilege we cannot be in struggle or real solidarity without meaningful wealth redistribution. I appreciate knowing about this person/organization and how they are approaching it.
I want to redistribute billions of dollars based on my own ideas, though! Let someone else worry about the big picture – I want to change individual lives by giving people what they need to improve their circumstances. Basically, I’m a control freak.