Rob Reich,Director of the Center for Rthics in Society at Stanford University, warns that big money is using the guise of philanthropy to advance their personal agenda and bypass democratic institutions.
https://qz.com/1035084/philanthropists-dont-deserve-our-gratitude-says-a-stanford-ethicist/
“Exceptionally wealthy people aren’t a likeable demographic, but they have an easy way to boost personal appeal: Become an exceptionally wealthy philanthropist. When the rich use their money to support a good cause, we’re compelled to compliment their generosity and praise their selfless work.
“This is entirely the wrong response, according to Rob Reich, director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University.
Big philanthropy is, he says, “the odd encouragement of a plutocratic voice in a democratic society.” By offering philanthropists nothing but gratitude, we allow a huge amount of power to go unchecked.
“Philanthropy, if you define it as the deployment of private wealth for some public influence, is an exercise of power. In a democratic society, power deserves scrutiny,” he adds.
“A philanthropic foundation is a form of unaccountable power quite unlike any other organization in society. Government is at least somewhat beholden to voters, and private companies must contend with marketplace competition and the demands of shareholders.
But until the day that government services alleviate all human need, perhaps we should be willing to overlook the power dynamics of philanthropy—after all, surely charity in unchecked form is better than nothing?
“In extreme situations, such as a major disaster, Reich is supportive of donations from philanthropic organizations. But he’s strongly against private donors providing public goods on a longer-term basis, which he says contributes to a cycle whereby the state expects to provide less and philanthropists are relied on to pay for more and more. And a democratically elected government should be a far better provider of long-term services than wealthy individuals.”
That is precisely the reason that Bridge International Academies, the for-profit provider of low-cost schools in Africa is doing harm: it enables the state to do less and to shirk its responsibility to provide free, universal public education to all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Philanthropy means “love of humanity” — nothing wrong with that.
What we have here is PHILAUTOPY — “love of self”, giving in a way that serves one’s narrow self-interest at the expense of society.
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Billyanthropy
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The Billyanthropist”
Billyanthropist am I
I gave you Common Core
And testing to the sky
I’d like to give you more
Billyanthropist am I
I gave you teacher VAMs
A tasty Chetty pie
And lots of charter shams
Billyanthropist am I
I gave you pseudo-science
And sellebrate the lie
With test and VAM reliance
Billyanthropist am I
Billyanthropy I do
Democracy I buy
Impose my will on you
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SomeDAM poet,
PERFECT!
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Malanthropy (n): the state or process of using taxpayer-subsidized contributions to pursue one’s personal, financial and/or political interests.
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“To Serve Man” (in the Twilite Zone sense)
When man is served
On silver plate
A fine hors d’oeuvre
Is human fate
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I wonder if Reich realizes that the school where he is making his money, and from which he makes his proclamations, is the result of one of those whom he condemns.
“But he’s strongly against private donors providing public goods on a longer-term basis, which he says contributes to a cycle whereby the state expects to provide less and philanthropists are relied on to pay for more and more. And a democratically elected government should be a far better provider of long-term services than wealthy individuals.”
https://www.stanford.edu/about/history/
He lives off those same private donors who provide “public goods on a long term basis…” which he condemns!
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Good points, but it overlooks the fact that, at least in its modern variation, there’s nothing “charitable” about philanthropy. It’s done by people who have amassed obscene fortunes through, at best, unethical and, at worse, illegal, means, as a way to avoid the greater amount of taxes they would otherwise pay. If they would simply pay the taxes the owe and otherwise keep their filthy money, they’d be doing a whole lot more good.
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“It’s done by people who have amassed obscene fortunes through, at best, unethical and, at worse, illegal, means, as a way to avoid the greater amount of taxes they would otherwise pay. If they would simply pay the taxes the owe and otherwise keep their filthy money, they’d be doing a whole lot more good.”
You DO realize that these people are the source of the majority of revenue, right?
You ARE aware that this group of people pay about 90% of all taxes generated, right?
You ARE aware, right, that because of people like Gates, Buffett and the rest of those who have amassed fortunes keep lots of people employed?
Most universities would not be able to exist without the support of the people you so easily condemn. Unless, of course, the university starts charging students the actual cost of their education – but then, who could afford going to school?
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Um, no, no, and, well, no. It’s because of hoarders like Gates and Buffett (and those on the right) that income inequality has become absolutely staggering in the past couple decades and the middle class is shrinking. The only reason they pay the majority of taxes (if that’s even true – not to be rude, but I don’t trust your word on that) is that they’re the ones who have all of the money. But the fact remains that they pay substantially less than they should owe for the privilege of doing business under the protections of the United States government (and even that is substantially less than they would have owed back in the days of widespread prosperity that our parents and grandparents enjoyed).
As for poor, poor universities, how, oh how did they exist in the 50s and 60s when those “generous” people didn’t have nearly so much largesse to bestow on them?
People like you fascinate me, BTW. In the 1950s MLK fought for the right to vote. In the 1980s the Beastie Boys fought for the right to party. In the 2010s, people like you fight for the right to be exploited. My how we’ve fallen.
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From that hotbed of conservatism:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-income-taxes.html
“Whatever the measure, the numbers show just how dependent the U.S. has become on the earnings of the wealthy. The U.S. is more dependent on the income tax than other countries, with 37 percent of total government revenue coming from the income tax, compared with 24 percent in other countries. Those countries depend more on consumption taxes and other sources of revenue.”
Read the entire article to get the whole picture.
“As for poor, poor universities, how, oh how did they exist in the 50s and 60s when those “generous” people didn’t have nearly so much largesse to bestow on them?”
Read the history of Stanford. They have a loooong line of wealthy benefactors. And they are not the only university, be it a private or public institution, the majority has had wealthy benefactors throughout their entire existence.
“People like you fascinate me, BTW. In the 1950s MLK fought for the right to vote. In the 1980s the Beastie Boys fought for the right to party. In the 2010s, people like you fight for the right to be exploited. My how we’ve fallen.”
During the 50’s and on, there has been a general sense of personal responsibility. In the 2010’s that seems to have disappeared. The “wealthy” are blamed for whatever ails society. It’s their fault that x, y z is in such bad shape. If only they would pay their “fair share,” I could get them to pay for my education without any cost to myself…
Do rich people chose to do bad things with their money? Sure – just like poor people chose to do wrong things with THEIR money. The amount does not necessarily make me responsible in my use of my money.
But for crying out loud, let’s stop blaming “The Rich” for everything that ails the country!
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“From that hotbed of conservatism”
Um, I think you mean corporatism. There are very few conservatives these days, just as there are very few liberals.
In any case, as I’ve already stated, if the U.S. is that dependent on the “earnings” (sic – wealthy people don’t earn anything – they steal the labor of everyone else), it just means that’s because the wealthy are the only ones who have any money to be dependent on. The rest of us have been robbed blind. The wealthy haven’t gotten their money because they are thousands or millions or billions of times smarter, better or harder working than the rest of us. They’ve gotten it because they are purely greedy and have used their influence to engineer the economy to drive the vast majority of wealth upwards.
In any case, I’m most likely done talking to you (although I do tend to renege on those sorts of promises) because I suspect that your income depends on you believing what you’re peddling. I just hope, for your sake, that when you wake up and fall, there is still a shred of a safety net left to catch you.
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My income depends on the hours I work as a teacher’s aide…
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Boy, I didn’t think you had anything left to say that could surprise me. Good thing I was sitting down. Talk about fighting for your right to be exploited!
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Of course the rich pay the most in taxes; they have all the money, money which in many cases was extracted through exploitative business practices and/or using it to capture policy-makers and elected officials.
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LKinyon You miss the major issue in both your notes; that is, the shift of power that, at first, belongs to the whole idea of democracy. The power shift is FROM that idea (and public institutions devoted to the public good, like education) TO corporations and single persons who have amassed a lot of wealth.
Also, the professors is not involved in hypocrisy–they are hanging onto every existential thread they can in order to do their work–work that is usually good for all of us insofar as it contributes to the ongoing movements of intelligence and excellence in research and creative thought in a free society. But once they get under the financial umbrella of a philanthropist or corporation, they easily become propagandists, by commission or by omission–because of that same movement of power, their movements of thought come against an untenable conflict with the ideologies of the philanthropist–not good for the thought that keep a vibrant culture alive. What would you do–go live in a cave? Pick cotton? Starve?
But the shift occurs whether we or the philanthropist knows it or not, and whether they are complicit in gathering more and more power around themselves–like Betsy saying that (paraphrased) she deserves something (power) for all the money she has given (spent on buying legislators).
But it’s the classic story of the snake eating its own tail when philanthropists live in the freedoms afforded by a democratic form of government; while doing everything they can to destroy its power and to wrest it for themselves and their wealthy buddies–who have only their own bank accounts in mind.
This is what happened generally in Russia–The oligarchs took control of all of the public institutions; then they voted in Putin to fix the corruption problems; and he got rid of all of the oligarchs who wouldn’t support him. “Got rid of” is a euphemism for their dying or otherwise disappearing. I think you cannot see the forest for looking at the individual trees.
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AMEN, dienne77.
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In Liberia, the takeover is applauded by the government. In case you missed it, here is a recent link to the American Enterprise Institute panel of promoters of Bridge International and other for-profit “low cost” educational services.
These are neo-colonial takeovers of governmental functions, including education. Readers should know that the stated “prices paid” by a family for BI education are usually misrepresented, just as they are in many charter schools in the US.
The software programs being used as the delivery-management-accountability system is developed in the US with slight modifications of curriculum content to make sense for students in each country that BI seeks as a market.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?430887-1/charter-schools-developing-countries
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It’s not just that the states become dependent on billionaires for handouts.
It’s that the states are often left picking up the tab.
Here’s the game the billionaires play: they kick in startup funds on what they claim is a program for the public good. But then the states (in the case of Common Core) or foreign countries (in the case of Common Core) end up shouldering most of the expense for implementation of the programs.
The actual goal of Common Core (which Gates himself admitted in 2009) was to standardize schools in order to create a market that software and hardware companies could easily “plug into”. Gates even used the electrical plug analogy. The upshot was that Gates laid out a few peanuts at the beginning knowing full well (in fact, counting on) that the states would have to eventually lay out billions to keep the elephant fed over the long term.
The same pattern is present with Bridge International. The long term business plan is almost certainly that the governments of the countries where Bridge operates will pay Bridge to operate the schools. The idea that billionaires are investing in this company on the hope that Bridge will be able to make a 20% ROI off of destitute families in Africa is just a crime joke. The investors in Bridge are almost surely counting on a transition to a situation where the governments pay Bridge directly.
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Should have been foreign countries (in the case of Bridge)
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More good points.
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In other words, Bridge investors are quite literally banking on Bridge becoming the de facto goverment school system across the African continent.
Imagine the amount of money they will make in such a huge “market”
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Thank you. It’s not philanthropy; it’s investing — in a company that seeks profit.
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Philanthropists can kiss my rear. They have motives, which aren’t great. They need to just PAY THEIR TAXES.
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We have invited billionaires into government by giving them tax credits and write-offs to create public-private “partnerships.” These arrangements are not really philanthropy as this is a “quid pro quo” understanding in this relationship in which the public has no say. Billionaires and government work together without any input from the people their decisions impact. It is even worse when Zuckerberg-Chan set up an LLC for their projects. This is not philanthropy; it is tax friendly seed money for a new business venture in which the LLC will retain control. We are inviting the people with deep pockets to come in and reshape our society without public input.
Meddling billionaires have been given far too much access to our education system. Under Obama Bill Gates was inserting himself to push the Common Core, VAM and endless testing. People had no say in the process, and Gates was allowed to use our young people and our schools as guinea pigs for his own personal agenda. This is irresponsible government that circumvents the public. This trend is continuing as companies are lining up to sell schools a variety of tech products including depersonalized learning. None of these products have been legitimately validated, and wealthy individuals donate to right representatives to ensure their adoption. This is corporate overreach and interference with public education. Once again this a an abrogation of government’s responsibility to do what is in the best interest of our young people, not the 1% or corporations. This is not philanthropy; it is free market capitalism imposed on a public system that was never intended to be a marketplace.
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“Hard and Soft wear”
The billionaires are fishing
Fishing in a barrel
The bait that they are dishing
Is hard and soft apparel
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Love your comment, retired teacher. SO TRUE, INDEED!
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I think this explanation of what’s been going on from Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts describes it best, even though it was regarding the days of the Industrial Revolution:
“The only counter weight to capitalism is government.” And to paraphrase, labor wants to be the counterweight but it isn’t, primarily because the rich have quashed unions and few workers belong to them today, so government is the only mechanism to counter capitalism and curb its worst excesses.
That’s really why the super-rich want less government and deregulation. We have been experiencing capitalism gone wild, and without government stepping in, we have no recourse to greedy billionaires who, by virtue of their immense wealth, think that their agenda is best and they should determine policies. Besides buying elections and politicians, they have just figured out another way to exert their power, through their foundations, where strings are tied to their agendas and they are unaccountable and can avoid paying taxes.
Did Trump ever say exactly when America was great and describe the times that he aims to return to now? Most likely, it was when our constitution was written, because there were no corporations then, so there were no laws reining in corporate leaders, making them accountable and preventing them from conning and exploiting the rest of us…
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Weak government and unions allow the plutocrats and kleptocrats to have their way.
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Yeah, some unions today are less than ideal. The organizational structure that doesn’t allow for all members to elect the top leadership seems corrupt, and they do a lousy job of representing labor. Like our government, some have been bought off by billionaires.
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An ideal form of philanthropy, according to Reich, would see philanthropists using their lack of accountability to an advantage, by testing creative long-term solutions. “Philanthropists,” he says, “can pilot test social experiments or novel public policies, subject them to all kinds of scientific testing, and then present the successful innovations for a stamp of democratic approval—ordinarily to a legislator—for scaling it at large.”
That sounds just like Social Impact Bonds and pay for success contracts being sold as financial products and designed to bring profits to investors while taking control of social service organizations.
Scaling up and accelerating change are the key concepts of entrepreneurs who have no interest in getting “democratic approval” or legislative support on the basis of evidence or proof of concept. They are more interested in getting venture capitalists interestedin funding “winners” in the market place and if possible by-passing public debate and discussion.
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While I believe that requiring carefully controlled small scale proof of concept experiments is a key element that has been missing from school reform (with Common Core and testing imposed on millions of students without such proof), the billionaires should not be allowed to carry out any sort of “soicial experiment” (pilot or otherwise) without prior proper peer reviewed approval.
And if they DO carry them out without prior approval, they should be held legally and financially ccountable for all damages that result.
I still think that should be done in the case of Common Core, but I realize it never will be.
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Just to be clear: holding Gates, Coleman and others accountable for daMages assoiciated with Common Core, testing and VAM is what should be done (but won’t be)
Not pilot studies.
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What about the accountability of all those Education Specialists? People whose “expertise” was called upon and who actually developed these new rules? People with Ed. D.’s and Ph. D.’s? People with many years of experience in public education, who found it lacking, and decided changes were necessary?
You can blame the rich people all you want (seems to be a favorite activity), but they were NOT the inventors of change.
Educational specialists, people who ate one point in time were the colleagues of many of you, are the ones who decided and developed and looked for the funding…
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L Kinyon I doubt anyone here would say that the public education system has been perfect all along or didn’t take up on some bad ideas led by educational specialists. But that complaint only speaks to the “let’s improve public education” argument that we all agree with.
On the other hand, I have no memory of any education specialist who wanted to get rid of public education and replace it with corporate or oligarchic power, or make a place in it for religious zealotry, or claim that schools and school programs didn’t need accountability. Do you?
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Reich must think he is still at Berkeley! The gazillions in the Stanford endowment were given by big philanthropy-you can’t attack it if it is paying your salary!
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Nathaniel E. Perry says: “The gazillions in the Stanford endowment were given by big philanthropy-you can’t attack it if it is paying your salary!”**
It’s certainly dangerous, but that’s what the University must do, and call their “givers” to the task of withdrawing their funds while still taking advantage of the principles embedded in the Constitution and, BTW, the First Amendment (huh). And if Gates wants purpose, why doesn’t he just pay off the national debt?
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It’s villainthropy is what it is!
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