The very first commenter on that article really says it best (and succinctly):
> I feel this is one of your lesser thought out pieces. I mean false equivalencies are rampant in it.
but... if we must, a few hard counterpoints:
> 1. Is criticizing billionaire philanthropy a good way to protest billionaires having too much power in society?
This point misrepresents how journalism & counter-criticism occur.
People criticize billionaires. Full stop. Criticism of their philanthropy is not selective: it's a criticism of the billionaire when they receive press due to their philanthropy, not because its philanthropy. Billionaires don't receive wide-reaching press because of their new yachts because those articles are only of interest to niche audiences, whereas philanthropy is promoted more broadly. THAT's the only reason it receives more criticism.
> 2. If attacks on billionaire philanthropy decrease billionaires’ donations, is that acceptable collateral damage in the fight against inequality?
This is cross-referencing the first point and doesn't hold water once the first point is debunked: the "attacks" on billionaire philanthropy are directed at billionaires because they receive positive press, not because they are philanthropic. This question only makes sense if you believe non-philanthropic billionaires should not be criticised for being billionaires.
> 3. Do billionaires really get negative reactions from donating? Didn’t I hear that they get fawning praise and total absence of skepticism?
(a) the question is bizarrely worded and I don't understand how any answer to this question would either confirm or debunk... anything.
(b) the author's "research" has sample sizes of 25 (Twitter search) and 10 (Google search) respectively. i.e. is basically junk.
> 4. Is it a problem that billionaire philanthropy is unaccountable to public democratic institutions? Should we make billionaires pay that money as taxes instead, so the public can decide how it gets spent?
This is again a poorly worded question but the content of the "answer" essentially amounts to a (rightful) critique of the current US government, and compares it to 3 cherry-picked examples of philanthropy that the author believes were better than what the current government would do.
Moving past the obvious point that... dear god what a low bar that is... as a general simple rebuttal: criticism of billionaire philanthropy generally centres around the fact that their philanthropy does less good than the negative impacts of their existence as billionaires. These negative impacts are absolutely the reason for the current state of the US government.
Arguing that billionaire philanthropy is inherently better than functioning democratic government in general is obvious nonsense.
> 5. Those are some emotionally salient examples, but doesn’t the government also do a lot of good things?
Same point as 4
> 6. The point of democracy isn’t that it’s always right, the point is that it respects the popular will. Regardless of whether the popular will is good or bad, don’t powerful private foundations violate it?
I mean this is slightly different but it's essentially 3 Qs on the same thing...
> 7. Shouldn’t people who disagree with the government’s priorities fight to change the government, not go off and do their own thing?
4 Qs on the same thing. This is a crafty technique to seem like you have more bullet points than you really do.
> 8. Is billionaire philanthropy getting too powerful? Should we be terrified by the share of resources now controlled by unaccountable charitable foundations?
We're now wandering off-topic from the original "should we criticise billionaires" to "is billionaire philanthropy dangerous in theory", and starts with the argument of whether they wield too much power. For this, they use their total philanthropy spend as the operating metric, rather than the actual resources at their disposal. Total net worth of US billionaires rivals the federal budget, and exceeds the mandatory spend. The wealth of just one of those billionaires is almost 1/16th of the federal budget and fast increasing.
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At this point the list of bullet points verges off into the land of vague discussion and is no longer a set of "counterpoints" and just a rambling conversation.
This author sure can write a lot, but none of the points seem to land.