Bring back the potlatch

We used to have a better breed of billionaire.

Even in the twisted era of the Gilded-Age, the rich recognized concepts like the social license to operate and the consent of the governed. Combine those concepts with a religious and moral backdrop that is mostly unrecognizable today, and you had a societal expectation you had to give back in order to be allowed to be rich.

Take Andrew Carnegie…by all accounts a mostly insufferable asshole. He did not treat workers well, was ruthless in business, and generally trampled across the rights of others to amass his fortune. But over the last 18 years of his life, he gave away over 90% of his riches. Most notably, he founded over 2,500 public libraries, giving people a vital resource to improve their lives and raise their station. Deep down inside, he must of known that his success was ultimately tied to the skills and capabilities of the workforce around him.

Or consider John Rockefeller, Sr. He grew rich beyond imagination due to his work in the petroleum industry - but also gave away over $540 million across causes wide and varied - including the education of black Americans, reducing poverty and hunger, and promoting research among universities. His son John D. Rockefeller was instrumental in the founding of Grand Teton, Acadia, and Shenandoah national parks, donating land and money. Those became public treasures, available for all of American citizens and visitors to enjoy in perpetuity.

I had the pleasure of supporting a company that had its DNA in the Rockefeller charitable vein - investors and developers of real estate focused on environmental responsibility, placemaking, walkability, and societal benefits. Once established, a culture of giving can carry on for decades.

But it seems that things have changed.

Philanthropy was once admired in this country - the more you gave away, the more respected you were by society. Even the term ‘Philanthropist’ was once a badge of honor. You could be a titan, a captain of industry, a mogul…but to be called a Philanthropist carried unique weight.

Today we have ‘disruptors’, ‘founders’, ‘tech-bros’, and more racist, ego-maniacal billionaires than you can count.

The only person seemingly rising to the occasion is MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Jeff Bezos. She is donating her wealth at an unprecedented rate (over $26 billion in seven years) - with little to no strings attached. This makes her the third-biggest philanthropist of all-time, giving more in 2025 than Musk, Page, Ellison and Bezos have in their lifetimes combined.

Those dudes would rather inject billions of dollars into political campaigns that benefit themselves versus traditional charitable giving.

Says a lot about a person…and a society.

These are not new challenges. Most civilizations have to craft checks and balances on the accumulation of wealth and power. And on approach deserves closer examination. The Potlatch.

Practiced by the Native tribes of the Pacific Northwest, a Potlatch was a gift-giving feast hosted by the wealthiest tribe leaders or chiefs, with the intent of distributing or even destroying that wealth. The ceremony was tied together with many aspects of tribal business - familial celebrations, a time to negotiate access to resources and questions of governance, and reaffirming spiritual and community connection.

But at the center was the distribution of wealth. The rich and powerful would gain community esteem by sharing their possessions and giving gifts. The more they shared, the greater respect they earned. At the end, the hosts were still probably the most wealthy among the tribe, but the community as a whole was better off and feelings of envy, jealousy, and bitterness were soothed.

A potlatch truly is a stoke of community genius. You feed the egos of the rich and act as a societal pressure release valve. It reinforced cultural traits of sacrifice, responsibility, and connectedness…underpinned by the central truth - that we’re all in this together.

How different would our political, cultural, and economic landscape look if we respected the rich not by the empires they created but rather the largesse they gave away?

A society can be measured by who earns respect and how they earn it. I fear that at least for the billionaire class, we are measuring the wrong traits. People seem to think being rich - in and of itself - demands respect. That we should overlook some fairly repulsive and egomaniacal behavior, you know, because they have money and a lot of Twitter followers.

We’ve lost sight of the fact that we permit them to be rich, and that there needs to be a balance and exchange of value between socio-economic classes, or the whole thing falls apart.

Ask the French in 1789, the Russians in 1917, the Chinese in 1949, and the Americans in the 1930’s.

Sometimes the imbalance needs correcting.

Inequality is the root of most of our problems today. I think we could learn a lot from the traditions of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

A Potlatch or two might be worth trying.

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Disclaimer:

All content and opinions are solely those of the author (Jack), and not representative of my employer, former employers, anyone in Congress, my family, former college roommates, Baptists, the good citizens of Colorado, or my dog Mabel.