The Philanthro-Capitalist Class
October 3, 2018 8:17 AM Subscribe
“First, for years, they allowed problems to fester—real problems like declining social mobility, what trade was doing to America, issues around cities and gentrification. Every time you say Lean In is going to fix gender equality, or one charter school in Bed-Stuy is going to solve education, or you’re going to have some kind of tote bag that saves the environment—every time we were promulgating phony change, that is not doing real change. It is crowding out real change and redefining change so we cannot do more ambitious change.” Why Real Change Won’t Come From Billionaire Philanthropists - “Just as the firm dodged the collapse of those toxic securities, it dodged the public’s thirst for justice. The e-mail’s recipients—and the very affluent in general—would capture most of the gains from the long recovery. A Times analysis of Federal Reserve data last year found that, while the average American household was still thirty-per-cent poorer, in net worth, than in 2007, the top ten per cent of households were twenty-seven per cent wealthier than before the crisis“ After the Financial Crisis, Wall Street Turned to Charity—and Avoided Justice - Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All, on the win–win business- and plutocrat-friendly philanthropy of today’s rich (Jacbonin Radio)
Carnegie only built libraries so he wouldn't just be remembered as a union-busting murderous avaricious little shite.
posted by scruss at 9:32 AM on October 3, 2018 [21 favorites]
posted by scruss at 9:32 AM on October 3, 2018 [21 favorites]
Reliance on Noblese-Oblige or desolation. This appears to be the short-term binary choice that people have to make when they want to make things better for their neighborhood, city, or country.
As with people dealing with the immediate effects of other systems of oppression, I can't condemn people for making the first of the above two choices.
posted by lalochezia at 9:52 AM on October 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
As with people dealing with the immediate effects of other systems of oppression, I can't condemn people for making the first of the above two choices.
posted by lalochezia at 9:52 AM on October 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
The Super-Rich Are Stockpiling Wealth in Black-Box Charities - Donor-Advised Funds are gaining popularity, but charities may be losing out in the undermining of American charity
DAFs are completed gifts. You can't get the money back. It just gives you control over the timing and direction of the distributions. Charities aren't perfect, they get mission creep, they can become inefficient or poorly run. DAFs just put more control into the hands of the donors.
I'd say DAFs are much less rife for abuse than their alternative, the private foundation. Private foundations can get into all sorts of mischief. I'm not just talking Trumpy criminal stuff. I mean perfectly legal stuff like hiring all your kids and grandkids as employees of the foundation and then paying them salaries.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2018
DAFs are completed gifts. You can't get the money back. It just gives you control over the timing and direction of the distributions. Charities aren't perfect, they get mission creep, they can become inefficient or poorly run. DAFs just put more control into the hands of the donors.
I'd say DAFs are much less rife for abuse than their alternative, the private foundation. Private foundations can get into all sorts of mischief. I'm not just talking Trumpy criminal stuff. I mean perfectly legal stuff like hiring all your kids and grandkids as employees of the foundation and then paying them salaries.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:56 AM on October 3, 2018
Thanks for posting this. And unfortunately, this isn't even just a 1% true-elites thing. Even on the community level, it's endemic to see businesspeople and politicians tirelessly profiting from harmful trends, and then at some point pivot to "civic leaders" who organize high-visibility, low-impact initiatives that throw miniscule resources at the problems they themselves have advanced.
posted by dusty potato at 9:58 AM on October 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by dusty potato at 9:58 AM on October 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
DAFs are completed gifts. You can't get the money back. It just gives you control over the timing and direction of the distributions. Charities aren't perfect, they get mission creep, they can become inefficient or poorly run. DAFs just put more control into the hands of the donors.
One, that's not a gift. Two, as the articles point out, the problem is allowing the donors control, because that means that they determine where the charity heads - or doesn't.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:18 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
One, that's not a gift. Two, as the articles point out, the problem is allowing the donors control, because that means that they determine where the charity heads - or doesn't.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:18 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Pull Quote:
The more important thing that needs to happen is not from rich people—it’s from the rest of us, who need to learn to take change back. That means as an individual, asking, “What can I do?” My simple answer is, next time you see a problem, don’t start a cupcake company that gives back—just solve it. When you see a problem, think of a solution that is public, democratic, institutional, and universal. Think of a solution that solves the problem for everybody at the root. And then build movements.posted by ZeusHumms at 10:30 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
We are not a country of movements anymore. Even in the anguish that President Trump has caused, how many billionaires have Democrats considered as the salvation? Howard Schultz, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Oprah, Tom Steyer. Look at ourselves for a second. Why is it that we keep turning to billionaire sugar daddies and sugar mommies to rescue us from a phony billionaire sugar daddy?
An FPP on Stephen King’s thoughts about this from years ago...
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:35 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:35 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
One, that's not a gift. Two, as the articles point out, the problem is allowing the donors control, because that means that they determine where the charity heads - or doesn't.
1. "Completed gift" has a specific meaning when you're talking about transfer taxes like estate and gift tax. They have been fully transferred outside of the estate of the person making the gift, and they cannot be pulled back.
2. If your organization depends upon donations, you will always be at the whim of the donors who provide those donations. Just ask any charity about the headaches around restricted funds.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
1. "Completed gift" has a specific meaning when you're talking about transfer taxes like estate and gift tax. They have been fully transferred outside of the estate of the person making the gift, and they cannot be pulled back.
2. If your organization depends upon donations, you will always be at the whim of the donors who provide those donations. Just ask any charity about the headaches around restricted funds.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
This tendency to hoard rather than spend DAF funds is borne out by the most recently available statistics from the IRS, which show that the median annual payout rate from all DAFs was 7.2 percent, while nearly 22 percent of all DAF sponsors reported no grants at all.
...but as compared to what? I know for a fact that many people are pre-funding future years worth of charitable donations into DAFs. This is not money that otherwise would have gone to a charity, this is money that just would have been kept in the person's own account. But by funding into a DAF, you guarantee that the eventual recipient of the funds will be a charitable institution. I would bet that we find that the creation of DAFs will increase the overall total dollar amount of funds going to philanthropic organizations going forward, not decrease them. That'll be particularly true as the generation that funded them begins to die off.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:49 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
...but as compared to what? I know for a fact that many people are pre-funding future years worth of charitable donations into DAFs. This is not money that otherwise would have gone to a charity, this is money that just would have been kept in the person's own account. But by funding into a DAF, you guarantee that the eventual recipient of the funds will be a charitable institution. I would bet that we find that the creation of DAFs will increase the overall total dollar amount of funds going to philanthropic organizations going forward, not decrease them. That'll be particularly true as the generation that funded them begins to die off.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:49 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
When you see a problem, think of a solution that is public, democratic, institutional, and universal.
Oh that's so easy! I also design new products in my spare time, all of which are useful and none of which ever conflict with existing patented products.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:08 AM on October 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
Oh that's so easy! I also design new products in my spare time, all of which are useful and none of which ever conflict with existing patented products.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:08 AM on October 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
I admit that when I posted before I hadn't RTFA yet, and I was disappointed to find Ghiridaradas' perspective per the Citylab interview to be very...surface-level? There's so much interesting to say about the messed-upness of "philanthropy" but it feels like he's just re-stating the problem in a few different ways.
posted by dusty potato at 12:43 PM on October 3, 2018
posted by dusty potato at 12:43 PM on October 3, 2018
Less philanthropy, more tax-paying.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:05 PM on October 3, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:05 PM on October 3, 2018 [13 favorites]
Reminds me of this quote from Branko Milanovic:
I was in a think tank in Washington. The president of the think tank told me: “Well, you can do whatever you want, but just don’t call it inequality. Put the word poverty there. Because we have many rich people on our board, and when they see the word poverty that makes them feel good, because [it means] they’re really nice people who care about the poor. When they see the word inequality it makes them upset, because [it means] you want to take money from them.”
posted by doctornemo at 2:48 PM on October 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
I was in a think tank in Washington. The president of the think tank told me: “Well, you can do whatever you want, but just don’t call it inequality. Put the word poverty there. Because we have many rich people on our board, and when they see the word poverty that makes them feel good, because [it means] they’re really nice people who care about the poor. When they see the word inequality it makes them upset, because [it means] you want to take money from them.”
posted by doctornemo at 2:48 PM on October 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
they allowed problems to fester
They didn't just passively allow them, they actively sought to both reinstantiate and re-entrench most of this.
posted by mwhybark at 4:29 PM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
They didn't just passively allow them, they actively sought to both reinstantiate and re-entrench most of this.
posted by mwhybark at 4:29 PM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
"So the winners of our age have engineered a world in which they, the winners, take all...When the winners get to redress the injustices they helped to create, they gain a veto for any kind of solutions to those problems that would threaten them."
The problem we need to address is not "what are the 0.01% doing with their money?", its "How the fuck did they get all the money, and why do we let them keep it?"
posted by Jakey at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
The problem we need to address is not "what are the 0.01% doing with their money?", its "How the fuck did they get all the money, and why do we let them keep it?"
posted by Jakey at 1:35 PM on October 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Ezra Klein Show - Anand Giridharadas on the elite charade of changing the world
posted by gen at 3:42 AM on October 5, 2018
posted by gen at 3:42 AM on October 5, 2018
These Citadels Of Power, Chris Lehmann
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS’S NEW BOOK Winners Take All is a bracing account of how the forces of wealth have turned social reform into another sham exercise in elite-administered market disruption. Giridharadas chronicles the mobilization of a new model of philanthropic activism he calls “MarketWorld”—a network of big-money funders stretching from Davos to Aspen to Silicon Valley, all agitating for neoliberal, tech-driven panaceas to social ills, like microloans and charter schools. (You can read my review of the book here.) Giridharadas knows the mindset and social mores of MarketWorld firsthand; he’s a former analyst for the corporate social consultancy McKinsey & Company, a onetime fellow for the Aspen Institute, and a veteran of the TED Talk circuit. I spoke with him last week, after he gave a distinctly non-TED-style talk about the book at Washington’s Politics and Prose bookstore.posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:17 PM on October 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:24 AM on October 3, 2018 [4 favorites]