Ron Baron built a fortune most Americans can only imagine, then announced he's giving much of it away.
The billionaire investor and founder of Baron Capital has long promised to hand over the bulk of his wealth to charity rather than leave it to his children.
In a country where the ultra-rich are hoarding more than ever, this should be a feel-good story.
Because it throws a harsh light on everyone else.
We live in an era of trickle-down generosity that never quite trickles.
The middle class is drowning in grocery bills, rent that climbs every spring, and wages that haven't kept pace since the last recession.
Meanwhile, a handful of men decide, at their own discretion, whether hospitals get funded or schools get new roofs.
There's something almost medieval about it.
A lord endows the village well and everyone bows.
But the well should have been public all along.
Advocates argue that philanthropy fills gaps government won't.
That's true, and Baron's giving will do real good.
But it also lets the rest of the system off the hook.
When private charity becomes the safety net, the net depends on the mood and mortality of a few rich people.
And here's the part nobody says out loud: these pledges are often tax-advantaged.
Donating appreciated stock avoids capital gains, and foundations let families keep control of money they've promised away.
But it makes the celebration complicated.
It's the culture that treats billionaire benevolence as a substitute for a functioning society.
We've quietly accepted that the very wealthy are our emergency services, our arts patrons, our university builders, our disaster relief.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans give a higher share of their income to charity than the wealthy do.
The person making forty thousand a year drops twenty in the church plate and never gets a wing of a hospital named after them.
They don't get a magazine profile either.
So when we applaud Baron, we should also ask the uncomfortable question: why does the fate of so many depend on the conscience of so few?
A healthy society doesn't need saints among the oligarchs.
It needs systems that don't require them.
Maybe the real story isn't that one man chose to give.
It's that we've arranged things so that his choice matters this much. **Our take:** Generosity is admirable, but a nation that depends on the goodwill of billionaires has already admitted something is broken.
Final Thoughts
We should thank Ron Baron and then demand a country where nobody has to.