‘I’d rather be a billionaire and not be loved by everybody’: Charlie Munger shrugs off controversy over $200M donation for nearly windowless dorm
News of McFadden’s resignation sparked the latest round of criticism of elite philanthropists and their sway over public projects. “It’s one thing to put your name on a building, [and] it’s another level of egomania to condition a gift on accepting the donor’s architectural plan entirely without modification,” wrote Stanford political scientist Rob Reich, author of “Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better,” on Twitter.
Munger shrugged off charges that billionaires are too influential. “You’ve got to get used to the fact that billionaires aren’t the most popular people in our society,” he told MarketWatch. “I’d rather be a billionaire and not be loved by everybody than not have any money.”
Marketwatch
Leslie Albrecht
SHIRLEY [angrily] Who made your millions for you? Me and my like. What’s kep us poor? Keepin you rich. I wouldn’t have your conscience, not for all your income.
UNDERSHAFT. I wouldn’t have your income, not for all your conscience, Mr Shirley.
Major Barbara
George Bernard Shaw
Major Barbara is a three-act English play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907. The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. Undershaft, the father, gives money to the Salvation Army, offending Major Barbara, who does not want to be connected to his “tainted” wealth. However, the father argues that poverty is a worse problem than munitions, and claims that he is doing more to help society by giving his workers jobs and a steady income than Major Barbara is doing to help them by giving them bread and soup.