This is an unusually good opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.
Think Gates, Zuckerberg, Walton, Hastings, Koch, and many more who use their wealth to impose their ideas on what they consider lesser lives.
The author is Anand Giridharadas.
Please note the mention of charter schools, a bone used by the elites to distract us from wealth inequality and the necessity of providing a better education for all.
It begins:
“Change the world” has long been the cry of the oppressed. But in recent years world-changing has been co-opted by the rich and the powerful.
“Change the world. Improve lives. Invent something new,” McKinsey & Company’s recruiting materials say. “Sit back, relax, and change the world,” tweets the World Economic Forum, host of the Davos conference. “Let’s raise the capital that builds the things that change the world,” a Morgan Stanley ad says. Walmart, recruiting a software engineer, seeks an “eagerness to change the world.” Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says, “The best thing to do now, if you want to change the world, is to start a company.”
“At first, you think: Rich people making a difference — so generous! Until you consider that America might not be in the fix it’s in had we not fallen for the kind of change these winners have been selling: fake change.
“Fake change isn’t evil; it’s milquetoast. It is change the powerful can tolerate. It’s the shoes or socks or tote bag you bought which promised to change the world. It’s that one awesome charter school — not equally funded public schools for all. It is Lean In Circles to empower women — not universal preschool. It is impact investing — not the closing of the carried-interest loophole.
“Of course, world-changing initiatives funded by the winners of market capitalism do heal the sick, enrich the poor and save lives. But even as they give back, American elites generally seek to maintain the system that causes many of the problems they try to fix — and their helpfulness is part of how they pull it off. Thus their do-gooding is an accomplice to greater, if more invisible, harm.
“What their “change” leaves undisturbed is our winners-take-all economy, which siphons the gains from progress upward. The average pretax income of America’s top 1 percent has more than tripled since 1980, and that of the top 0.001 percent has risen more than sevenfold, even as the average income of the bottom half of Americans stagnated around $16,000, adjusted for inflation, according to a paper by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
“American elites are monopolizing progress, and monopolies can be broken. Aggressive policies to protect workers, redistribute income, and make education and health affordable would bring real change. But such measures could also prove expensive for the winners. Which gives them a strong interest in convincing the public that they can help out within the system that so benefits the winners.”
There is more, if it is not behind a paywall.
“Oops, my bad” — by Bill Gates
I thought you said “chains”
Was what you desired
But really it’s “change”
By which you’re inspired?
“Hope and Chains”
Regimes change
But core remains
To rearrange
The Hope and Chains
The wealthy that set up LLCs for their grand plans, at least in the case of education, they are using public money to underwrite their investment. Then, they privatize the profit. What they propose often removes any democratic input or accountability from the equation. This is not progress. It is turning education into a business venture with little regard for students that get repeatedly used as guinea pigs. If the project tanks, the local taxpayers are left holding the financial loss and cleaning up the mess. This is not progress. It is irresponsible governance in which the needs of investors are of primary importance, not students.
Wall Street has been driving the elites to get away with everything. You have written endlessly about the ed reformers knowing full well they have no intention for minorities to learn anything. Wiithout and education you will remain outside the margins of life. Which is the purpose of ed reform. Has hunger stopped in Africa as of yet. Bill gates controls the purse strings and nothing changes.
Where were the school superintendents when decades ago this dumbing down of America started. Where were the union leaders? Where were the political leadership? All trying to get the slice of the money pie off of the backs of minorities. Just like slavery fueled capitalism. A country based on racism can never change their strip. As long as your rich you can throw money at do nothing politicians and not fear that anyone would hold you accountable.
That was then and this is now we will fight back and make our schools good again and get rid of the ed reformers..
Yes this is must reading from a writer who cares deeply about democracy while others just bleed democracy dry.
Beata,
The edreformers are stripping the assets from public schools and giving them away to privatizers. They start with schools in big cities because they know that the state legislature is run by a cabal of white men. Then they move on to the suburbs and rural area.
You are right, Diane. They start with big cities, because in “big” cities they can more easily get away with their CR**. Then once the deformers GET the cities, they move on to the other places. It’s a GAME.
The suburbs and rural areas must look at the fact that while invasions initially viciously hit poor, often inner-city and often non-White schools, EVERYONE in the state should have taken responsibility to care about any children in the state being abused by false “reform.” It is from silent complicity that abuse finds a way to spread.
Foundations and LLCs are simply ways of avoiding restrictions and oversight.
Gates and Zuckerberg have mastered this particular ruse. Their decisions are undoubtedly made primarily by accountants — probably former Arthur Andersen (Enron) accountants at that
And this is the reason that Obama bailed out all the wrong doers when we had the big recession. He bailed out the people who created the problem and then let them buy up the scraps for more profit. “Hope” and “Change” were only for the ones profiting from that hope and change…..not for the other 99.9% of us paying taxes and trying to live in this world. I know that Obama was not the cause, but he sure didn’t try to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. I will contend that this all started with Reagan, went into overdrive with B Clinton and then just steadily climbed the hill until the recession….but every politician along the way had their hand in this dirty deed. VOTE THEM OUT!!!
AGREE, LisaM.
It’s always better to get ripped off by a “friend” who relieves you of your life savings with a smile and talk of hope and change than by a Trump.
Or at least that’s the way some liberals view things.
If these super wealthy oligarchs paid their fair share of taxes instead of hiding assets in off shore accounts, we would have a lot more public money for public projects without the influence of the biased !%. Instead, these so-called partnerships are vanity projects for the wealthy. They get to impose their vision and profit seeking intentions on the public who would be better served if the government created laws to collect adequate revenue. In the case of privatization which repeatedly disappoints, lies, cheats and steals without consequence, our young people and local communities are left picking up the pieces and paying more for some billionaires grandiose idea that falls flat.
Beware of this word, “GENTRIFICATION.”
Jeff Bezos makes more in 10 seconds than his average warehouse employees make in a year. The richest man in the universe and his employees don’t get proper bathroom breaks and get paid garbage level wages as they are ground into dust by the work load and hideous work environment.
Yes, monopolies can be broken but is there another Teddy Roosevelt waiting in the wings to do it … again?
Bernie Sanders, I don’t think so.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or someone like she is now, I hope so.
The country “needs” someone like a Teddy Roosevelt, not exactly another Teddy Roosevelt, once each hundred years to set the wealthy back to square one.
Once every fifty years would be better.
Best would be once every 25 years.
To start, let’s bring back the 90-percent tax rate for the wealthiest 1-percent.
“In 1944-45, during World War II, couples making more than $200,000 faced an all-time high of 94 percent. Sanders said income tax rates under Eisenhower were as high as 90 percent. A look through the records shows that top earners in the eight years of Eisenhower’s presidency paid a top income tax rate of 91 percent.”
That 1945, $200,000 would be $2.8 million today since inflation between 1945 and 2018 is 1300 percent.
Conclusion, earnings of any kind above $2.8 million should be taxed at 91 percent.
If you are earning $2.8 million annually and you can’t fund a comfortable lifestyle with that, you don’t deserve the money anyway. Who needs ten yachts and multiple mansions?
To answer your question at the end, Lloyd:
Betsy! The Líderess of American Public Education.
I think people are making an even bigger mistake by placing their hopes in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than they did with Obama.
She is an even bigger unknown and what is perhaps worst of all, she may be an unknown even to herself.
She talks a lot about socialism, progressivism and the rest but does it mean anything? Does she even know what it means?
I have my doubts.
As just one example, she has been very critical of Uber and Lyft, but it turns out her campaign has made extensive use of both.
When we have a candidate that is perfect and no one can find fault in them, I say dig deeper. Everyone is human. Everyone is flawed. Why should Alexandra be any different? One consolation. She isn’t old enough to run for president for years. Plenty of time to decide how full her progressive glass is.
I’ll take even half a progressive over an empty cup like Trump, the entire GOP and about 80 percent of the Corporate element of the Democratic Party.
I agree there is no comparison to someone like Trump, but if the standard is ” better than Trump,” then 99.9999% of the people in the world probably qualify.
Ocasio-Cortez has not even yet won a seat in Congress and some people are already treating her like the second coming of Jesus Christ.
In my opinion, that is just a recipe for disappointment.
Correct, Alexandra hasn’t won the election yet but she is running in New York City that votes about 70 percent Democratic in almost every election, and she is telling the voters that will be voting for her what most of them believe in.
At this point, the only way she could lose to a Republican is if she has a skeleton in her closet worse than the dozens in Trump’s closet. To lose, she’d probably have to be a transgender who went from a conservative white male to become a progressive Hispanic female.
Then how many votes would she lose in this district?
Consider New York’s 14th Congressional district:
In 2008, this district went for Obama 76 to 23 percent
In 2012, the vote as 81 to 18 percent
In 2016, the vote was 77 percent for Clinton to 20 percent for Trump
I don’t see a link to the NY Times article or the title of it here. Could you please add that, Diane? TIA
https://nyti.ms/2OXx61e Opinion | Beware Rich People Who Say They Want to Change the World – The New York Times
Florida’s Gov. Scott “earned $2.9 mil. in 2017 from two dozen hedge funds registered in the Cayman Islands”. (Share Blue)
Minnesota’s Rep. Jason Lewis touted a gold company associated with Alex Jones. The state revoked the company’s license after it looked at the firm’s practices. (Media Matters)
Koch Industries contributed to Lewis’s campaign. In his prior life as a conservative radio host, he lamented the past when, “We required modesty from women.” He also described Black people as having an “entitlement mentality”. And, not surprisingly, he wants school choice and vouchers. Lewis is a typical colonialist like Bill Gates and Marc Andreesen.
Excellent read. Thanks for the post. I am going to buy his book.
Sidestep here: Can anybody link me to info about Detroit’s American Promise schools? I get a sense that maybe it’s a sinking ship.
“What their change leaves undisturbed is winner take all”.
From the book, “The Middleman- The rich dreamed up racism so that wage slaves would feel better. Just be happy you’re not one rung lower. You angry you don’t have a job? Blame the Mexican that works for half the price. The rich never say, I only pay the Mexican half as much as I pay you. No, it’s the Mexican’s fault for being desperate enough to work for peanuts.”
Hope and Change
Hope and change
Are all we get
Nickels and dimes
To make a bet
With ante to play
A single hand
100k
100 grand
Poets lift us, provoke us to action,… and at other times solace us by uniting a neighborhood around shared misery.