Read this beautiful parable by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay on the karma of giving. In under 1500 words, the author takes us through the complex nature of charitable giving and how intent can cloud and even negate any good accrued from it. It reminded me of this other article I read recently about the harm being done by philanthropy where one of the authors of the book Winner Take All is cited thusly:
Giridharadas offers a stinging jeremiad. In his view, we live in an age that enables the rich to keep more and more of their gains, many of them ill-gotten. Then we flatter them for money and advice. “Today’s elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history,” he writes. “But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory in history.”
Maybe the mega rich of today are seeking their entry into the Giver's Paradise just as Karnasen was in Bandhopadhyay's story written in 1932. And Yamaraja may give them credit for very little if any of their myriad charitable efforts.
Giridharadas offers a stinging jeremiad. In his view, we live in an age that enables the rich to keep more and more of their gains, many of them ill-gotten. Then we flatter them for money and advice. “Today’s elite may be among the more socially concerned elites in history,” he writes. “But it is also, by the cold logic of numbers, among the more predatory in history.”
Maybe the mega rich of today are seeking their entry into the Giver's Paradise just as Karnasen was in Bandhopadhyay's story written in 1932. And Yamaraja may give them credit for very little if any of their myriad charitable efforts.
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