At the risk of sounding like Ebenezer Scrooge, your Christmas editorial celebrating philanthropy (“Philanthropy and the gift of giving”, FT View, December 23) failed to differentiate between genuine charitable giving, in which the donor does not expect any material personal return, and philanthropy, in which the wealthy donor is often seeking to obtain social prestige and influence and/or deflect attention from economic and other activities considered to be socially questionable or even criminal.
Witness Andrew Carnegie, who employed thugs to break strikes by workers in his steel mills. Alfred Nobel was an arms dealer. John Rockefeller ran an illegal oil monopoly.
Cecil Rhodes was a racist and imperialist who established an entire British colony based on brutal exploitation.
Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking; and the Sackler family contributed to the deadly US opioid crisis
John Moore
Guildford, Surrey, UK
