In an age of global disparaity and inequity, billionaire philanthropists (dead and alive) are stepping up to the plate with powerful foundations and acts of charitable giving to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. But how much faith should we place in the hands of individuals with concentrated wealth and power? And if we take a step back to examine the broader system in which these individual philanthrocapitalists function, do we find any contradictions between wealth doled out and the process of accumulating it? Further, despite some of the good that we perceive directly stemming from philanthropic efforts, what are some of the hidden motivations behind these efforts that ultimately seek to deepen the same structures that produced the problems in the first place which philanthropy purports to solve?
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(Yes, it's another terrible automated transcript. We'll get to fixing this eventually, we promise!)
Transcript
[0:06] I'm David Torcivia.
[0:08] I'm Daniel Forkner.
[0:10] And this is Ashes Ashes, a show about systemic issues, cracks in civilization, collapse of the environment, and if we're unlucky the end of the world.
[0:20] But if we learn from all of this, maybe we can stop that. The world might be broken, but it doesn't have to be.
[0:33] Capitalist Society is particularly in need of stories our everyday lives are defined by going to school and to work caring for our kids listening to gossip having a laugh and stressing about this or that. Get all of these microinteractions take places within a set of larger structures and relationships. Whose primary purpose is to make a profit the vast majority of people go to jobs that were not created to meet human needs but to give the owners of capital a return on their investment. All of us wage earners and capitalist alike are locked into a system designed to perpetually accumulate more and more profit not to satisfy human needs or provide for the common good.
[1:19] This is a strange way of organizing Society it goes against our nature as social mutualistic beings. Yet for capitalism to survive and thrive people must willingly participate in and reproduce it structures and norms. Coercion and duress work to integrate the poorest and most desperate members of society but they are not sufficient to ensure the generation of prophets in the long term. Large swaths of the population must actively or at least passively believe the capitalist Society is worth their creation energy and passion. That it will provide a sense of meaning and that it meets their need for justice and security.
[2:04] That was written by Nicole ask off in her book the new prophets of capital.
[2:09] As we discussed whether an episode 22 Fashion Victims were 36 and 37 on slavery, those who find themselves at the Bottom Rung of our Global Supply chains are open exploded directly to violence coercion other forms of enslavement alt-fuel consumer and economic growth in the world's richest countries. But for those of us in those witches countries being physically and mentally removed from these M Pleasant origins of our supply chain. We are still fully integrated into the broader economic and political structures that enable this violence we're not merely beneficiaries of global capitalist accumulation. We are inseparable cogs.
[2:51] But we don't directly choose this Arrangement none of us or very few of us would be led to a slave pit, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were a slave boat off the coast of Hawaii or ruined habitat cleared for an Indonesian palm tree Plantation. And then say yes I'd like to maintain these thing so I can continue to spread palm oil butter on my waffles for breakfast. None of us actually wants to live in a world where cheap commercial knick-knacks are delivered to our door for the modest price of Global Environmental destruction inevitable economic collapse brutal slavery violence and War. It's okay to prevent us from rising up against the system to keep us from joining hands and channeling our anger or are. Dissatisfaction into some collective action to overthrow it we are told stories stories that make us feel good. To make us believe that the live we live in the context of this system are actually contributing positive things. That the goods we purchase save the world. The modern state of the world is in an edible and unavoidable reality and that the violence and destruction all around us are not products of the current system, but rather it is our economic system that is actively working to end these unfortunate realities these are some of the stories that were told.
[4:11] Central to the perpetuation of these stories is the idea of philanthropy and charity. At the behest of these narratives upholding the capitalist hegemony and extolling us to place our faith in modern economic growth are men and women telling us. Drew Archer bull contributions and generous living we can change the world. That by supporting billionaires with vision these rich philanthropist who decided to give back who will put their heart and soul into righting the wrongs of global inequality poverty and global warming will then we can save the world.
[4:44] Okay well alright David why don't we visit the mind of one of these great philanthropists. One of the founding fathers of modern philanthropy if you will have to do that why don't we go back in time to the gospel of Wealth written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889. So David I want to read you some of these thoughts. From Carnegie in this Gospel of wealth and of course Andrew Carnegie was a great man of Industry that help build up the American economy back in the day had a steel Monopoly and all that. And I think it's really revealing what his thoughts are on the purpose of this wealth and how it should be used, and obviously philanthropy is something he was known for and he discusses a little bit about his thoughts on that so let me redo some of the things that he talks about.
[5:37] Sounds good.
[5:39] So he he begins his essay talking about how there's this great problem of the day and that's the way that wealth is distributed.
[5:48] Okay any call that you know I can get behind that so far.
[5:51] Right and he says that through proper administration of wealth the quote ties of Brotherhood may still buying together the rich and poor and harmonious relationship. And he goes on to say that when he was visiting the Sioux a Native American nation he says I was led to the Wigwam of the chief, it was just like the others and external appearance and even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his Braves, the contrast between the Palace of the millionaire and the cottage of the labor or with us today measures the change which has come with civilization. This change however is not to be deplored but welcome is highly beneficial. It is Well Nate essential for the progress of the race that the houses of some should be homes for all that is highest and best in literature and the Arts and for the refinements of civilization rather than none should be so. And then he said he closes that thought off with but whether the change be for good or ill it is upon us beyond our power to alter. And therefore to be accepted and made the best of it is a waste of time to criticize the inevitable. So that's kind of how we're getting started off with Carnegie's thoughts on wealth do.
[7:08] Wait wait let me let me simplify and summarize there cuz it's a lot of wigwams and things so what you saying is. Yeah you know back in the day we all lived in more or less the same house. And that's fine but I would rather have some baller ass house that has like the best art ever created and for other people to live in squalor and that is one of the words that he used. You left that part out of your quote. Because at least been somebody's benefiting from all of this wealth and we are forwarding society and civilization because this stuff is being treated for somebody, even if that means only small amount of people are able to to enjoy the benefit.
[7:49] Well you know I think it's even deeper that I think he's legitimately saying that Civilization is a whole benefits from this divide and maybe he's even implying that the. Those men and women who live in squalor today are actually better off than they would be in a living and in the type of relationship that the Sioux people had right.
[8:07] Are we talkin about Andrew Carnegie or the IMF right now because they really sound pretty much the same.
[8:12] We'll get to the IMF David don't work but you know that you're right he has like two premises here but I think are quite, questionable which is one that the Divide between rich and poor is natural it's inevitable and therefore quote beyond our power to alter. And then the second is that like what you said this divide is essential and good fertilization let's keep that in mind let me read some more things from this essay for you. Today the World of Tanks Commodities of excellent quality of prices which even the generation preceding this would have deemed incredible. The poor enjoy what the rich could not before afford what were the luxuries have become the necessities of life. The labor has now more Comforts than the landlord had a few Generations ago okay so yeah you see David he's actually saying that the poor are better off than then they pretty.
[9:03] Yeah and that slums are a sign of progress over wigwams which the IMF just totally ripped that off I guess.
[9:11] Yes I know we talked about in episode 23 best of times, how this kind of is like a central narrative like one of the stories that were told that upholds capitalism that oh yes we have slavery yes we have environmental destruction but it would be far worse had we not created the system of profit accumulation, are they one thing really stands out to me to where he's talking about the quality of life being better today or in his day and in the 1800s because of, essentially what are Commodities right and that's another thing we hear a lot that we talked about in that best of times episode that life is better because you can go to the store and purchase, a comb for $0.25 whereas 200 years ago that come would have been $500 because it had to be made through some special material like Ye Ye industrialization.
[9:58] Will I be even heard that turned around on this Dairy sa so I'm in this was written in 1889 930 years ago at this point. But I've heard people today suggests that even the poorest American alive right now lives a life that's more fantastic than anything Andrew Carnegie. Could have imagined because they have a microwave. And they have a flat panel TV and they save enough money they can fly in an airplane to somewhere that means that materially there better off than Carnegie is. And to those people with Celiac have you been to one of the Carnegie houses and seeing how that man lived. Good good check out his but it's basically a palace and then say that again to me with a straight face but yeah okay sure he couldn't. Make microwave popcorn in 3 minutes with a bunch of burnt kernels but it didn't matter because he had a whole team of chefs and slaves basically making stuff boring but I'm getting beside the point.
[10:52] Will the microwave David we might consider one of the benefits of civilization but, those benefits come with a price and in Carnegie has something to say about that he goes on, the price which society pays for the law of competition like the price it pays for cheap Comforts and luxuries is also great but the advantage of this law are also greater still for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, the weather the lobby benign or not we must say of it is here, we cannot evade it no substitute for it have been found and while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual it is best for the race because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every Department. We accept and welcome there for great in a quality of environment. The concentration of Business Industrial and Commercial in the hands of a few and the law of competition between these as being not only beneficial but essential for the future progress of the race. This is kind of his rationale for that premise that we discussed earlier of how this divide between people is a good thing because competition is what drives innovation in Civilization 4.
[12:03] Yeah I mean this was the social darwinist idea at the time that was involved because of well you know Charles Darwin, and his work in biology you which was shaking the world at the time but since then we have a hundred thirty years basically disproving the fact that that, this is not how things actually work that there seems to be really little correlation between the wealth of somebody and their capability or Fitness, there is however a dramatic correlation between their success in life in the wealth of the board into but that's another conversation and something we talked about before.
[12:38] Willem it's something we see today a lot I mean the idea of ideas the marketplace of ideas.
[12:45] Do you have any ideas evenly been disproved have not gone away. I want to make that clear.
[12:50] Are we going to see this idea come up again because the kind of like a spoiler alert here but the modern philanthropists of today, cling tightly to this idea of competition and the face that is put into it in terms of how we're going to solve some of the greatest problems in the world through charitable giving and philanthropy are often so tightly connect. To the idea that have competition but we'll come back to that I want to read something else that he wrote where he says in this Gospel of wealth quotes these socialists or anarchists Prestige to overturn present conditions is to be regarded as attacking the foundation upon which civilization itself rest for civilization took its start from the day that the capable industrious Workman said to his incompetent and lazy fellow if thou Dost not sow Thou shalt not reap and dust ended primitive communism by separating the drones from the bees.
[13:45] I'm not even sure exactly how to respond to all of this because in everything especially in this essay I mean and everything Carnegie right but really this essay there's this just overwhelming arrogance that I know what's best and and I mean he goes on who use a phrase a lot like those who have studied the subject and things like that implying that he's the only one who has the expertise and the experience and a breadth of knowledge to really speak with authority on the subject to mean he is, I guess probably still controlling for inflation the richest person who has ever lived in modern civilization I'm sure there's, you know like the king of ancient Persia had more wealth but. In terms of of a non-royal individual he is probably the wealthiest person who has ever lived so I mean maybe we should take his perspectives on accumulation of wealth and the horrible thing is he had to do to achieve that, maybe we should listen to that but how to spin that wealth in a sustainable way in and how to talk about society as what's best for it, take everything with a little grain of salt, and here I mean the way that he talks with such confidence about the Way That civilization inherently symbol itself if this very low old idea that I mean it. Talk about a hundred thirty years ago but it continues today and that's.
[15:02] Civilization is this. Sort of unavoidable progression of logical events in each room was going to happen and we had to move in a single way in order to get to civilization where does now without, any of these very obvious things the creation of property, the fact that some people are going to work hard and we were bored them for that we look at it as obvious and that's how we got here today but, there are so many examples especially when you start digging into various groups and types of people a moment in Civilization that show that these just aren't true. They are simple assumptions to make, they've been just proves just so many times maybe he didn't have the anthropological breadth of knowledge or research available to him at the time to realize that this is the case having only the Huber said he has in his inherently they specifically American Western perspective of things in Ed to be feared Andrew Carnegie he was against a lot of, European models of accumulation of wealth he hated the British aristocracy he suggested a lot of, inheritance laws and Taxation because you hated the way the aristocratic method reward what he felt was lazy. And incompetent people tell me he was trying to put his money where his mouth was so to speak and quite literally many times but he was just wrong so much it's really hard to respond to a lot of these things, what do you supposed to say besides this is not correct because you just don't know so much.
[16:24] Well I think it's it's so important to read because of how deep these ideas are held by the wealthiest people in our world today and you see that where he separates people into drones and bees and we we see that today with the separation of people into winners and losers and what is the criteria so often it's the criteria as well who's making profit, from Carnegie's perspective his land and so many of the modern billionaires of today a life is only valued so much as that it's making money.
[16:55] Yes I want to point out that a lot of the language that the use isn't explicitly about Prophet like even here and Andrew Carnegie's essay he says if thou Dost not so that she'll be able to get those who work hard is our reward. Even in his time and it's very much true today work and the amount that we work at how hard we work is very poorly correlated with how much we succeed and how much wealth we generate, some of the wealthiest people in the world don't work a day in their lives and it's 60% of the wealth in America is inherited. The vast majority of it is inherited not created from from this mithos of work and I know so many people who are basically won Miss paycheck away from being on the street to a working 80 or 100 hour weeks with multiple jobs just to get by.
[17:40] Right like that sucks half of all America.
[17:43] Exactly. Add but but but as you point out this mid still persist if you hustle hard enough and we have this hustle quotes are going on then you will succeed and it says it's never been true despite how much these billionaires is philanthropist these entrepreneurs today would like it to be so.
[17:59] And even going Biondo like if hard work correlates with wealth there's another interesting way to look at this David graeber puts it really interesting Lee when he writes in 2013 from an article and strike that became the impetus for his book bulshit jobs he writes in our society there seems a general rule that the more obviously wants work benefits other people the less one is likely to be paid for it, an objective measure is hard to find but one easy way to get a sense is to ask what would happen where this entire class of people to Simply disappear, say what you like about nurses garbage collectors or mechanics it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke the result would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or Dock Workers would soon be in trouble and even one without science fiction writers or Sky musicians would clearly be a lesser place.
[18:53] It's not entirely clear how Humanity would suffer were all private Equity CEOs lobbyists PR researchers telemarketers Bayless or legal Consultants to similarly, and and I love that question because I like you're saying hard work doesn't necessarily correlate with wealth, in what David graeber is saying as well that sell doesn't even correlate with value to society the most highly-paid and richest people in our world today oftentimes do work that we wouldn't even miss if they disappeared meanwhile the people who are doing the work that keeps civilization running the actual people doing work that Progressive civilization that Carnegie is so fond of are these people that are paid barely nothing.
[19:37] The real question Daniel is what would happen if you and I disappeared.
[19:40] The world would crumble David come on.
[19:43] I know you are world will crumble if I disappear.
[19:49] Here's the here's the Carnegie Again David quote. These are the highest result of Human Experience individualism private property the law of accumulation of wealth the law of competition unequally or unjustly perhaps says he's lost sometimes operate. And imperfect as they appear to the idealist they are nevertheless like the highest type of man the best and most valuable of all that Humanity has yet to accomplish.
[20:19] So it should be no surprise I think to anybody listening Daniel that a man who accumulated. This vast amount of wealth would decide that the four highest achievements of humanity is.
[20:31] Private property of course.
[20:33] Private property competition accumulation of wealth and of course because he doesn't want anybody fucking with him individualism, it's unsurprising that somebody would be like onion you know what's with the best for things about any person is Daniel number one if they're named David. Number to if they have brown hair but like a very specific shade that I just happen to have the exact one. I never 3 if they have a show called ashes ashes the number for through living in New York right now. Anybody who achieves those four things is the highest Pinnacle of man and everyone else is he going to trash.
[21:14] That's basically what Andrew Carnegie is doing here right now as ridiculous as that sounds he really is, when he's trying to get these four things that either wants or allowed him to cumulate this huge mass of wealth, either as as fundamental laws of nature of things that have always been there and then that he discovered in Civilization discovered and allowed him through some divine right because this is a natural way of the world working to accumulate all this massive amounts of wealth and power. Or he's just trying to redefine what he sees as the world that he's living in right now to played into his exact rules, and it'll large part he succeeded in doing that partially because of his outside influence because of his wealth and also some of these thoughts are they they peeled at you a lot of other people who have his wealth and power over wanted it and today I mean we still have these ideas from this essay echoing like you've mentioned in these ideas of philanthropy and and even beyond that in in general ideas of Entrepreneurship and the accumulation of wealth in the fact that it is an innately good. And it is a religion of sorts here in the United States especially.
[22:16] Yeah like you said he believes he's because that's who he is and, we should examine our own society and who do we look to in terms of our leaders and our Idols I mean we have a present right now who's a billionaire. We have people like Elon Musk these billionaires that we put our faith in terms of progress for civilization, people like Bill and Melinda Gates who are billionaires that we look to in terms of solving some of the greatest problems in our world but when you look at the psyche of you know what they believe it's really self-serving but more importantly is, how resistant naturally a person like this is to anything that threatens, very fundamental structures that enable that wealth accumulation in the first place so here's Carnegie riding he continues. He says but even if we admit for a moment that it might. Better for the race to discard its present Foundation that is all those laws that you just said is the highest achievement of man.
[23:14] If it is a nobler ideal that man should labor not for himself alone but in and for a Brotherhood of his fellows and share with them all in common even if it were good to change. We cannot know. It is not practicable in our day or in our age this is the question we have to ask when we look at these billionaires who do these messages benefit. That this man that sitting atop the highest rung of the the largest economy of his day is Saint will look even if a better world were possible it's just not practical how convenience right David.
[23:51] I guess there's so many responses in this essay I don't even know how to reply to it it's such a very specific foreign way of looking at the world, compared to my own experience is what I something that I do encounter, day today and when I meet these people I was just throw up my hands and I walk away because I I don't I don't know what to say to someone how can you explain to somebody. Anything when they see the world so differently than you would they take these very basic truths, that time and time again experience has shown are not truths are anything but they're to cultural constructs at the very most and. Just assume that because this is the way things are that's the way they always have been and always will be and that's the best way it can be because they have is this very loose date that. The fact that this is the way things are is a product of some sort of larger market and so therefore the best ideas survived and we are living in that world right now the only thing I can improve upon that world are, I don't know the technological innovations or something because culturally we have reached a peak and there is no improvements because there's nothing to prove upon because this is not it's not a work-in-progress it's just the way things are, the way things have to be.
[25:06] Went in the reason why we comment on these beliefs in the first place like you said it's ridiculous and most of our listeners are going to recognize that pretty early but the reason we have to comment on that is because these are still the people that we uphold and we idolize in our society and it's who we put our faith in and even those who are skeptical I think of the Elon musk's of the world. Still we collectively have this.
[25:32] Tendency to throw up our hands and say well this is just the way the world is I've had this conversation with so many people where you know before we started this podcast I was learning about so many of these ideas I would tell people and I get these. Apathetic shrug where they base to say well you know that this is the world we live in people act this way and that's just how it is we have to challenge that idea, because if we just accept the terms that are given to us will never truly get that better world because we realize that these people don't fundamentally want to challenge anything about the status quo and ultimately what a lot of philanthropy and charity is today's there are actions that do not fundamentally challenge anything about the current structure that is causing the problem they were trying to solve to charity, but it eases the anxiety and the guilt that we feel at seeing a world creating so much destruction so we're almost done with Carnegie but that brings us to kind of the topic of today philanthropy and what his ideas are on the subject you know he asks what is the proper way to dispense of this great wealth that men like him have accumulated. And he says he's really against the ability for people to inherit wealth and he says the only other two ways to get rid of wealth is to bequeath it, to the public or to administer it during your life for some some good.
[26:56] And he says there remains then only one mode of using great fortunes that is men using it during their lifetimes for good under this way we shall have an ideal state in which the Surplus wealth of the few will become in the best sense the property of the mini because administered for the common good and this wealth passing through the hands of the few can be made a much more potent Force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves.
[27:27] It's a David this is his core belief that he has an individual can do more good with his wealth than the public can and I just want to hone in on something he says here David which is that. Like the only alternative to using your wealth that you have acquired for like projects and, and making the world a better place the only alternative to that in Carnegie's eyes is scattering it among the poor to the course of many years and trifling amount since there's a huge flaw in this and it's something that comes up all the time today anytime someone discusses the merits of capitalism versus like socialism is this assumption that wealth distribution is only about scattering money around. And the idea of ownership never actually comes up Carnegie is assuming that the only alternative to philanthropy is for wealthy men to pay their workers higher wages he says quote, consider what results from the Cooper Institute and compare these with those which would have, Arisen for the good of the masses from an equal sum distributed by mr. Cooper in his lifetime in the form of wages which is the highest form of distribution, much of this song If distributed in small quantities among the people what happened wasted in the Indulgence of appetite some of it INXS, so he's assuming that the only alternative to philanthropy is to pay people more, it still assumes that all of these people are still laboring under a wage system and nothing about the underlying structure has changed.
[28:57] I think there's one more important Assumption of his you need to point out there Daniel and that's not only that, Japanese the philanthropy or higher wages but if you entrust people with higher wages than these dumb workers are just going to waste that money on stupid things like beer and food and shit. And couldn't possibly be using that for some other way that would be more responsible than the Philosopher's on high that is Andrew Carnegie, knows because he knows what's best because his great wealth and experience and fuck all the people who made him all that money through his exploitation of them. It's that that's their problem he's going to be the one to direct them with his very father like Daddy knows best way of approaching these problems which is the exact same thing we see the day when people talk about like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, of course he knows how to run things he's a businessman you know he's going to drain the swamp he's going to think you would have all this corruption because he can run a business he's my daddy so of course the alarm us is going to save us from all these environmental problems he's going to make an electric car that pollutes more than a a phev vehicle or whatever you know like always dumb stuff like, you almost will save me because he's my daddy and we have this giant daddy complex that I think really is is the real driver of our capitalist warship that we see today, and is exemplified in this philanthropy.
[30:20] I know exactly that the daddy knows best is a perfect way to conceptualize this in on that point I want to read something he says a little bit further down in this essay, a well-known writer of philosophic Books admitted the other day that he had given a quarter to a man who approached him. He knew nothing of the habits of this beggar new not that use that would be made of this money although he had every reason to suspect that it would be spent improperly, the quarter given that knife will probably work more injury. All the money which it's thoughtless donor will ever be able to give in true charity will do good and this was probably one of the most selfish and very worst actions of his life.
[31:03] What what is he think that quarter is going to do. Either he's he's really really down and how much good has wealth will do or he thinks that quarters is going to Jack the Ripper its way up to the slums or something I mean that is that is. It's so selfish and evil I mean like dial to New York right and I'm walking around I mean to Subway's a lot. David day there's probably five to 10 people that asked me for money. Just on a regular day I mean it happens all the time I was on the subway car you walk into a restaurant someone's opening the door for you and they asking for money this people on the streets. There's 80,000 homeless people in this city and there's more people than that on the streets asking for money because they say they need that to get by whatever. When I have a dollar or a quarter in my pocket I'm always going to give it away even if I don't believe this person's going to use it for whatever. Good it is another some people who are like I won't give you money but I'll buy you food. Sometimes I say no or those signs you see posted around don't give money to panhandlers instead donate to local charities who help panhandlers but there's this assumption that these people. Either are trying to scam you or they're going to misuse this charity that you're giving.
[32:15] And it's in the very way that we approach people in the way that we perform this interaction between beggar and the person who is being fed to. And because that's what we are being text you and I always if I have something give it over because I don't care if they're going to go and turn around it's been out on alcohol or drugs or War lotto tickets or whatever because it is so hard to ask for money too so hard to be in the situation you can look at this person they need help regardless of of whatever narrative, you might read in some tabloid that says these people make $150,000 a year whatever begging, who cares because every now and then somebody really genuinely does need that and that quarter or that dollar can be a life-or-death difference and even if it's not you know if this person is going to blow it on drugs there's a reason that they're doing that and whatever more power to your man spend it your way I'm not going to tell you Daddy Knows Best it's your life you control it I don't need this dog take it and especially coming from somebody who like Andrew Carnegie $0.25 is literally nothing. Nothing.
[33:19] Yeah but in the end he just assumes that those in need are stupid and worthless and there is a big arrogant in contradiction actually in this narrative, oh you know don't give a homeless person a dollar because they're just going to turn around and spend it on booze like. How many of us go home after a long day of work and Te'o I need it you know I need a drink because my day was so hard yet we're going to deny that for a you know homeless person because we think we know a better way for them to spend their money when here we are doing the exact same thing.
[33:47] You know Andrew Carnegie was going home and poured himself an expensive glass of whiskey to but because it's inexpensive glass in a crystal decanter in a fancy-ass living room is not the same even know he might could just as trashed it's not the same.
[34:02] Yeah okay I don't want to spend too much more time on trying to get but there's two more quote.
[34:05] 45 minutes later.
[34:07] Because it is a bit carnesha.
[34:09] But there are just like two more quotes I want to read David because it opens the door I think to understanding how hopeless it is to put our faith in billionaires up today so first he says. Those worthy of assistance except in rare cases seldom require assistance the really valuable men of the race never do. He is the only true of former who is as careful and is anxious not to Aid the Unworthy as he is to a the worthy and perhaps even more so. 4in almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding Vice than by relieving virtue and then I want to read one more quote from him where he says quote we are met here with a difficulty of determining, what are moderate songs to leave two members of the family again he's against leaving huge sums of well to his family and he goes on what is modest. Ostentatious living what is the test of extravagance, the answer that it is impossible to name exact amount of actions as it is to Define good manners. But nevertheless public sentiment is quick to know and to feel what offends these. The verdict rest with a best and most enlightened public sentiment the community will surely judge and the judgments will not often be wrong. Okay and so what I really want to highlight about these two ideas is just how wide open the door for interpretation they are.
[35:37] You know he divides people up into drones and bees the worthy the Unworthy and he claims that working together for the benefit of common good is pointless and against the natural state of things. And then he also says the individual Millionaires and billionaires are the best judge of how their money should benefit the public but yet when it comes to deciding whether or not millionaires are being inappropriate with their wealth. It becomes oh don't worry the public will decide if you're being inappropriate in in the novel determine the limits of your spending with what public is he talking about what community, is he referring to the Millionaires and billionaires of his Universe have acquired their well specifically because the needs opinions and the will of the working-class the the so-called, unworthy drone these needs have been ignored who is left to hold these people accountable. And then of course because he's saying you know don't give your money to unworthy people he leaves the door wide open for these billionaires to make up their own rules. You know he's saying don't hoard your wealth but in determining whether or not you're holding too much you sent me these basic just saying we'll just ask your friends and see what they think. And you know there's also a contradiction in and telling these people to use their wealth for good but oh by the way anybody who's too poor to be successful as Unworthy of any assistance and I guess we should just let them die.
[37:01] Like I think it's easy to read an essay written by the world's richest man in the 1800's and like poke fun at it you know. I think it's pretty obvious that many of the things he says are quite ridiculous but we bring it up because as ridiculous as his essay is. Are his ideas really that different you know when we compare it to what we have today. Do we have Bill gate for example saying in a 2007 Harvard commencement speech. If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world ISO. You know Bill Gates is very modern billionaire text Savvy but yet here he is upholding the law of wealth accumulation. Write saying that the only way to solve these problems is to profit and also political votes.
[37:57] And then you know here we have another example I like comes from John Mackey who is I think you still the CEO of Whole Foods but you started this company this grocery store. On the idea that hate capitalism has kind of gone awry it's creating you know it's destroying the world but it's not fundamentally capitalism's fault it's just the fault of the individuals who are. Being bad so it is a whole ideas that will if I can be good and change the way business operates. Well then I can save the world while still remaining in the status quo economics then again he's upholding the laws of competition and individualism that Carnegie, ELD so tightly to when he says quote entrepreneurs are the true heroes in a free enterprise economy driving progress and business society and the world they solve problems by creatively envisioning different ways the world could and should be with their imagination creativity passion and energy they are the greatest creators of widespread change in the world. And of course the punchline of this conscious capitalism to John Mackey was espousing is that just a few years later Amazon one of the biggest and most destructive companies on the planet acquired his grocery store because of all the valuable data on consumer shopping habits and that's fundamentally that the problem is that when you adhere to these laws of competition you can't really Escape them remaining in the fundamental structures of our economy.
[39:26] It's the student but you know what my favorite John Mackey story is just to get a better idea of what type of person would write all this stuff out.
[39:34] It wouldn't surprise me if you would like the the flip-flop wearing tight.
[39:39] Well he he got busted for trying to do some insider-trading sort of stuff he was posting and leaking information about his company on stock trading messaging boards disparaging other companies his company was trying to acquire. Bcbsnc found out and busted him for that I think the charges were ultimately dropped but in a lot of those comments he was talking about how cool John Mackey was. Course pretending he was some Anonymous person and how great John Mackey's hair was so that's the type of person John Mackey is.
[40:12] I guess it's really not that hard to poke fun at the Modern Man Of Industry either actually you know they would my favorite quote from John Mackey, is a win in 2010 he said that it would be a shame to let. Hysteria about global warming to cause us to raise taxes and increased regulation, which is interesting the man who's going to save the world through this green revolutionary business practice thinks that climate change awareness is hysteria and how dare we use that to justify raising taxes but back to philanthropy day.
[40:44] Play Still turning back to philanthropy because I really is the topic of the show here and we might have gotten distracted with endless amounts of conversation that Andrew Carnegie and now John Mackey because I mean I guess it's some root level philanthropy is really, a sort of celebrity idea of, solving the world's problems if not about you or I going out and doing something Daniel it's our dependence on these people who for whatever reason have acquired huge amounts of power and wealth and taking some of that wealth. And it's never all some of that well and turning it into what we see is supposed to be some sort of social good. And that's that's what modern philanthropy is done and it's really the roots of it and Batman Andrew Carter you was talking about it a hundred thirty years ago. So what is ostensibly the purpose in live if you ask me that they're pissed what they're doing there's a they're making the world a better place by doing good. And doing good is the core, central idea of all these don't profit organizations of the people that we call philanthropist but remember always have these individuals in these groups are ones that are able to Define.
[41:54] Because they are not beholden to any other body or or source of checks or regulations not the government not the people it is their soul. Power because they have so much wealth but they get to Define good and then pursue that in whatever way they see and this is one of the Great. Dangers and in that is the word that I'm very carefully choosing to use up Flappy because a lot of times what a philanthropist what a billionaire what a hundred million are whatever they are defined as good.
[42:25] Only good for them or is more good for them and it is for others and then get to redefine our society or culture, based on whatever they're winds are at the time, and even our most celebrated philanthropist people like Bill Gates give away billions of dollars a year we've done so much ostensible good in the world, I mean this is this is the point of the show will receive other to go those ashes ashes boys telling us that even the people doing good or actually doing bad and I don't want to I don't want to do that because there is a lot of good that is being done the work against malaria is obviously important in the in the Gates Foundation example. There are downsides to that and I don't know if we're going to get into them but there's a lot of criticism in the programs that even though they are saving lives they are turning attention away from other diseases, they are preventing and some cases from people even talking about diseases that aren't able to be vaccinated for you can find all sorts of criticism for this upon a lot of criticism about Bill Gates particular out there citations needed a wonderful couple of episodes on just that how to make him and check them out will like them on the website.
[43:33] Yeah that's that's the podcast with Adam Johnson and Nima shirazi is another podcast with a similar name.
[43:38] Yeah you don't want citation needed you want citations needed but like I said that link will be on the website. These people and in this example Bill Gates gets to find what is good. Sometimes it backfires spectacularly because it often times don't know what's best for all of us even though they've convinced themselves they do because of their success in business and industry. You know that petrol pleco I'm good with computers so therefore I'm good at everything and I know how to solve The World's problems it's a nice trap to fall into but so often times it is just that a trap and Bill Gates that he spend billions and billions of dollars trying to redefine education in the United States and around the world in and there is no doubt in anybody's mind at the educational system as it exists the United States, is fundamentally.
[44:27] And this is something that like I said over and over again in the show we will get to this we can do a couple episodes on it but his is such an enormous topic that a we really need to finish all of our research and approach and figure out how best to you to tackle this problem will get to it eventually I promise.
[44:43] But surprised if someone like Bill Gates like you said this individual who is unaccountable who isn't subject to the Democratic process that we normally I think that these massive transfers of wealth should be subject to big surprise his solution to our broken public education system would be the turn it into a giant market where children are treated as inputs in this giant production line you're turning out educated young men and women in this idea that you can kind of use Market principles to separate the, good from the bad separate the good teacher from the Bad Teachers restrict funding for certain schools also that you can again going back to that law of competition pit schools against each other.
[45:25] It was really interesting about this Charter School push that Bill Gates is currently doing, having spent billions of dollars on the program with an actual programs as well as media and propaganda to push these ideas in addition to lobbying of various types for local school organizations and at a national level but this is only his latest, Revelation in a series of failed schooling attempts and experiments that he's been pursuing for decades at this point so before was Charter Schools he decided the big problem was a high schools were too big. And that if we could break up high schools into smaller schools well then all these educational problems would disappear, and so he did just that and found that it was a huge failure and end up costing more money and the results were basically exactly the same, and there's there's there's lots of problems here with a ignore what teachers are staying with the Palms are recently spent over billion dollars looking into this.
[46:17] Problem to say what is the big fundamental issues in education today teachers immediately said well first off its class size, the classes are too big the kids don't have proper nutrition and their lives outside of school or off in stressful and problematic. And so the Bill Gates Foundation ignored all this and said now you guys don't know what the problem is we're going to spend a billion dollars Gathering data doing research to figure out what the problem is, and their final Foundation results were well the problem is class sizes are too big kissing more nutrition and there's lies outside of school are stressful and problematic which are exactly the same thing that teachers have been saying for forever but this sort of cubers that exists when philanthropist especially modern philanthropy capitalist approach problem saying we need to collect data we know better than the people who are actually in here experiencing these problems because we have a scientific business-minded aspect approach to solving problems means that we can really get to the final Solutions have been overlooked time and time again, and it'll be the solutions to the end up coming up with are the same ones people have been begging for for techies while billions of dollars wasted trying to identify these problems that everybody already knew and understood.
[47:25] This is a situation that keeps repeating itself over and over again it doesn't matter which philanthropist you're looking at or which programs are doing the same things keep reappearing Richard Branson who made billions of dollars on his Transportation Network on flying airplanes around the world has no pledge that these taking the profits from his Transportation Network and putting them into green Energy Research because climate change is such a problem ignoring the fact of course that his Transportation network is contributing hugely to that climate change a problem in the first place he's trying to Band-Aid This Global catastrophe iFunny it with the program that is feeling that catastrophe in the first place and so much of philanthropist and modern-day philanthrocapitalism ideas. How do we end at these problems that we in part have traded in the first place.
[48:11] But that does a great Point David but I want to expand on something you said which is at these problems happen over, and over again I think it's kind of a symptom of this individualized way of looking at things we're at we're already looking at individual billionaires to try and solve problems so when they fail. Again going back to the John Mackey example it's kind of like it wasn't the system that they were a part of the failed it's the fact that they just. Made a mistake or we need someone better in there when he better ideas.
[48:40] Another pic examples after the 2010 earthquake that shattered at the Red Cross collected like over 500 million dollars in donations that's half a billion dollars in. Basically just vanished you know out after after all that collecting they built a grand total of 6 homes and their project area and so there's this big discussion about that in the nonprofit Waters like what went wrong what were the inefficiency what were the incompetencies and it becomes the story of how an individual or an individual organization made a mistake, but we really need to step back and say well what is the overall the larger system in which all these individual players function and I think we need a framework for understanding that otherwise we're just going to keep replacing, I think these these people with more and more people that ends up just making the same mistakes over and over again. And that's because I think the framework is that these people aren't necessarily making mistakes but they play an important role in managing the excesses if you will have our political, an economic system, so there's this idea that as wealth is accumulated through our economic systems it does so through extraction and we've talked about this environmental destruction is the price we pay for profit accumulation, and so as this occurs around the world you have resentment that builds up you have people's lives are shattered habitats that are destroyed and if this just goes unchecked.
[50:06] People wouldn't stand for it to every now and then these philanthropist kind of step into serve this function of making people feel like everything's okay.
[50:16] Making people feel that we're working on solutions to these problems aren't a result of the system, but they're merely vestiges of our old ways and that this new path that were charging is going to cover out these problems and make a better world so we had the free market movements.
[50:33] Beginning in the seventies and eighties that kind of kicked off a total transformation of the global economy we kind of touched on the second episode 28 dead end, and that this process reoriented National economies particularly in the global south from ones of, economic self-sufficiency to ones that were export-led so that their national resources could be turned into commodities for a Global Financial Market. And that has led to increased fertility in the Global Financial system we see way more economic shocks that Cascade from country to Country and so as Matthew Bishop in Michael Green right in there book philanthrocapitalism which is a defense of this kind of philanthrocapitalism that were talking about David and how it can ultimately save the world, they say that quote since the birth of modern capitalism in Europe, Rich business people have consistently played a leading role in solving the big social problems of their day. Indeed it seems to be a feature of capitalism that Golden Ages of wealth creation give rise to Golden Ages of giving.
[51:41] So not again they're rioting in defense and praise of these generous billionaires who follow up their extreme concentration of wealth and power. Start giving back to the people, but as many have pointed out we should be skeptical of this process and so here is Nicole a scarf again riding in the new prophets of capital. Quotes, philanthropy boom triggered by rapid increases in inequality during periods of massive wealth expansion serve as a kind of release valve for capitalism by ameliorating some of its worst excesses, the tycoon's of the early 20th century sought to Dole out their benevolent in a systematic manner, they also hope to extract influence over social programs and public opinion which was intensely anti-capitalist at the time they also worked behind the scenes to shape movements and policy. So that's kind of the overall framework we might consider the actions and motives of the modern philanthrope topless that it's not that it's necessarily. Giving back to the community but there's an idiot logical purpose, behind the things they choose to divert at their money too and I think we can look to a few examples David that really high like this in the realm of foreign relations and domestic affairs here in the United States.
[52:59] But first maybe we should start just broadly examining this idea that maybe all this philanthropy. He's in for the right reasons or sometimes actively something that's bad or negative but even going back for that, just a very conceptual level there's some basic things we should understand and especially around this sort of pressure release valve that the idea that philanthropy is there to make a essentially not Chop the head off, of these extremely wealthy industrialists, which is something that Andrew Carnegie and others were obviously very concerned about with the memories of the French Revolution that fairly recent in their minds. So it's like an example just very conceptually in and understand first off that somebody who has this much wealth, is somebody who has exploited people in order to get it because you cannot generate this much money with out at some point taking it from somewhere else and that is either from somebody's labor or through the exploitation of natural resources and the sullying of that product for the rest of us, it's in me in this part of this is so much money and we have 30 million thousand hundred million dollars we had a billion dollars we are hundred billion dollars and these are just numbers they're almost meaningless. To understand just how much bugging money this really is and how incredibly unbelievably wealthy these people are very quickly.
[54:22] If you have 3 million dollars okay which is not even considered high net worth it's a lot of money but that's not high net worth.
[54:31] 3 million dollar invested in a fairly conservative fund. You can pull out 3% of that for Forever Without ever hurting your total amount invested so you'll have three million dollars for forever every year you can pull up 3% and that $3000000 will actually slowly grow the most market conditions so you can pass it on to your children or whatever it was foundation and it'll exist for forever and that 3% of your pulling out is $100,000 annually, it's not a ton of money but that is more than enough money to live comfortably in most places in the world outside of a couple extremely rich cities and even then in New York San Francisco Moscow to London that's still enough money to live comfortably just not extravagantly, okay let's multiply that by little bit now you have 10 million dollars right, this still sounds like basically nothing compared to what Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos has what two million dollars in the same sort of principle that you $300,000 a year. That's enough to live very well anywhere in the world yeah granted you're not going to living in a penthouse that cost 30 million dollars and is on Central Park or something like that, you might only have a couple of houses but you can live extremely well anywhere in the world with that much money and you can do this forever without working a day in your life. It's 10 million dollars so let's jump up to what is considered for the first-time ultra-high-net-worth okay. 30 million dollars is 250000 give or take people in the entire planet who have this much money or more.
[55:56] That's actually not as many as I might think.
[55:58] Yeah so that really helps understanding how few people there are who are this wealthy in the first place but 30 million dollars if you invested in the same way you pulling out 3% of year you're making a million dollars a year. At this point more less and you can live on that for Forever Without ever working without ever losing any of your total investment give or take Market Wheeling.
[56:22] Who needs more money than that a million dollars a year. That's a huge amount of money you can live extremely extravagantly on that and over the course of your life of course that money adds up if you reinvest on yourself if you live with poppers life at 30 million dollars in 60000300. Then quickly can see how being wealthy and become fabulously more wealthy extremely quickly, and this is the area where we started get into philanthropist territory when you have $30 and up you are wealthy enough of you can start pecan considered to be a powerful philanthropist. What's somebody like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos a man who has over a hundred billion dollars worth of wealth that 10 million dollar figure that he can live for $300,000 a year for the rest of his life he could do that. Just once not 10 times as a hundred million dollars not a hundred times that's 1 billion dollars Billet skip all the way up to 10. Thousand times that he has 10 million dollars that's 100 billion dollars and Jeff Bezos even richer than this amount he could spend.
[57:27] 10 million-dollar 9999 times and still. Have 10 million dollars left over $10 can generate somebody's lifetime salary of $300,000 a year for forever so maybe this is a huge huge huge amount of money these people control and we forget that. We forget how much money that is because they're just numbers at some point they start becoming meaningless but the difference between million and a billion is unfathomable this is enormous enormous amounts of money.
[57:58] In fact that we just wave your hand is the okay yeah you know that's how much money that you have if you're successful is first off just Ludacris what's second off the fact that a man like Jeff Bezos worth over a hundred billion dollars till I get this divorce. Spins basically Pocket Change like literally equivalent of a couple of dollars of his money on charity should be enough that were scrambling to take his money way anyway possible because you just shouldn't have that much of course that money came from the Amazon warehouse workers. Pissing in bottles and sleeping in their van outside their warehouse because they can't live on anything else because he abuses them and pays them so little but they have no choice because it's the economy that we constructed so look at it any quality this man has created and many others like him who had this much wealth using the 250,000 wealthiest people in the world in the United States are 70 or 80 thousand of them depending on what number you're looking at and they control will over half the wealth in this country in fact the top 40 of these people in United States control the same amount of wealth as the bottom hundred fifty million people in the United State.
[59:00] Well. David you kind of just glass Dover but I think that was a really important point where you said Jeff Bezos actually create an equality, right in and that's how in large part that wealth is created this is something we discussed a more in-depth an episode welfare Titans where. Jeff Bezos was able to create this Amazon hegemony in large part by pitting cities against each other right for these tax subsidy so already, he's encouraging cities to raise taxes on their own people, raise property taxes / funding for public services so that they can transfer that money to him so that you can open warehouses and then when he does open those warehouses especially in impoverished areas where. His company becomes the only employer in town he now / is the union benefits that people were used to he pays them weigh less than they're used to and now they have no choice but like you said to piss in bottles and sleep in their cars for some people or work these grueling 10 hour days where they hope they can make it to the two-year Mark to start qualifying for benefits in reality though since there are pitted against each other is as competitive cogs in this great machine most don't even make it to the two-year Mark to get those benefits and so that is the inequality that he creates and that's where he acquired his Billington the idea that he just throw some change out the say hey I funded this, social program that sets up in a food bank or whatever it is I don't even think he's actually an active philanthropist David so.
[1:00:28] No not really he's investing his billions in space travel because he thinks that's necessary for some reason but I think it's a great point he's explaining his workers he's exploiting taxpayers these municipalities he's also a war profiteer with remember Amazon is an enormous defense contractors with contracts for the Department of Defense as well as the various intelligence agencies the United States who are actively, invading our privacy too many times to legally this is a man that has no Scruples what passes himself off as a Bookseller, and we're supposed to look the other way because he donates a small amount of this money to charity. Or because at some point he will make a pledge that I'm going to donate $50 to charity everything I did to get these ill-gotten Goods is fine.
[1:01:13] Bring it back to the point that Jeff Bezos Bill Gates others like him create this inequality they never actually take their philanthropy to fight things like any quality it's always targeted on things like poverty which is a symptom of this larger inequality that they created and a lot of times a philanthropist will be saying yeah we're attacking these stomach problems we're trying to fight poverty, ways of world war we're creating at the keishin after school lunch programs in these are good programs these are good things to have I can't we don't want to be saying that, education or nutrition or smaller class sizes aren't great ideas because they are. But these are problems in the first place because the schools are underfunded because of the inequality that exist in these communities and, passing out bags of food isn't going to solve that, because the inequalities in these communities are created by the exploitation of the people who live in these communities exploitation that is carried out by billionaire philanthropist like, Bill Gates Jeff Bezos and the rest of this like this is a group of people we're going around trying to. Apply bandages it did a problem that they created in the first place, animal cases some of the storm Tropic efforts are doing are not only trying to bandage the problems that they created but in many cases are creating entirely new problems were pushing solutions that are designed to further entrench themselves as the top of the status quo.
[1:02:34] When John D Rockefeller initially tried to set up his foundation it was rejected by the Congress and, the president at the time Teddy Roosevelt know this kind of badass figure in it in American history, and it's kind of upheld as this man who was tough on monopolies but still pretty pro-business he said at the time quote no amount of Charity and spending such Fortune can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them. But David I want to again step a little bit back and move away for a second from these individuals and I want to look at the role that these ostensibly philanthropic organizations play in foreign relations like informing policy that our governments enforce around the world and also domestic social issues like race and civil rights so for example we have the Council on Foreign Relations it's.
[1:03:30] Nonprofit Think Tank based in New York City and Washington DC specializes in policy recommendations and research to guide international relations between the US and the rest of the world. It was founded in 1921 with money from the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations and hear from their website quote, the Council on Foreign Relations CFR is an independent non-partisan membership organization Think Tank and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members government officials business executive journalists Educators and students Civic and religious leaders and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world in the foreign policy choices facing United States and other countries not David you notice the word independent and non-partisan your well looked up its funding sources for its main Think Tank which, which appropriately enough is named the David Rockefeller studies program 44% of the think-tank's funding comes from foundations 29% corporations 7% and other grants at 18%, and all of this funding is is qualified as restrict. Sources which means quote funds must be used to support a particular purpose or project.
[1:04:46] So there's another thing that stands out to me about this nonprofit. Which is again just one nonprofit in the sea of organizations that make up a particular Foundation funded Network. And that's another concept to think about in this framework is that these philanthropic foundations it's not just Bill Gates going out to Africa and like you know, personally sponsoring these project it's the ideas to create a network like we have an idea we have a purpose and we're going to fund grants were going to fund non-profit ngos. We're going to find Partnerships with universities and politicians and corporations to create this kind of Bedrock for a new way of thinking.
[1:05:26] So think about how many people are potentially supported independent on the work provided through these networks and are therefore subject to the subtle idia logical framework created through these Networks. As the CFR mentioned these are business executive journalist Educators and students religious leaders, we might also Imagine artist Community activist volunteers and more who made all in some way be depended on the work provided. In this case just one organization and I want to be clear here David that the point of this is not that I'm saying outright that, one way or another that this particular nonprofit or even the Rockefeller and Ford foundation's are inherently evil or bad or cause bad outcomes to occur in the world the point is that the wealth and power that is concentrated in these foundations wield tremendous unaccountable. Undemocratic influence over the policies that our governments and corporations support which then shape the curriculum that are taught in school the narratives portrayed in media and ultimately the norms and narratives about how our society is and should be structure this goes so much Beyond Simple. A charity donation to a a soup kitchen this is like World building right at the government level at the at the society level of the way we think and operate in the policies that we enact, that's what philanthropy is when you get to the billionaire level.
[1:06:49] Exactly it did something as small as even directing money towards a Cause without actually getting any sort of results or any programs in a place to say we're going to invest in this type of idea can be enough to divert the attention of entire nations and the way that they spend their there welfare money or Aid money as well as other organizations and it can leave in Tire very important causes ignored and left in the side because Gates Foundation the Rockefeller Foundation of Ford Foundation whatever decided that this problem is more important with his problems not important at all and this, ability to change the narrative is is another sort of hidden power of these philanthropic efforts that is given almost zero thought or consideration but. Let's provide some hard examples of different ways that this influence can play out in some places extremely subtle.
[1:07:38] A great example of how. Foundation serve as proxies for government while being totally decoupled from democratic input come from the Ford Foundation role in helping shape the post-world war, war on poverty in particular at the Ford Foundation was eager to develop industry within cities and it helped the US government enact legislation for the creation of what are known as Community Development corporations or cdc's and also community-based organizations known to CBS, in both of these were and our neighborhood level organizations that advocate for tenant rights small businesses affordable housing and other related issues and the funding for these organizations has historically come from foundations primarily but also Corporation, and in 2002 the Ford Foundation donated $1000000 to just three inner-city advocacy groups alone. And these these organizations all came about at a time when the Ford foundation and others were really interested in urban development in the United States in, it begs the question why was the foundation creating social advocacy groups that were fighting and part against Urban Development that was displacing people from their home so that Office Buildings could be built.
[1:08:58] Why would the foundation support these groups at the same time they were promoting this Urban Development in, as G William domhoff a sociology professor at University of California Santa Cruz rides these foundations and charitable efforts were attempting to absorb the resentment that people experience as they were displaced from their homes from this development, quote when riots and the destruction of property broke out in the 60s, the Ford foundation and the government decided they had to allow more participation in the programs by black activist. There is very good evidence that the groups and agencies supported by the foundation's cooled out the worst tension, channeling anger into what moderates all is more constructive. Forms of protest the Ford Foundation did not create the network of corporate donations to Community Service Group simply by hiring experts and bring them together with corporate executives, instead it was reacting to activists who were trying to stop urban renewal. Or to White neighborhoods that were advocated by the influx of African Americans that is the network was created by an unusual and in many ways uneasy Alliance of foundation officials and Community activist, ostensibly it was in the business of trying to reduce the tension of black-white residential integration, but it was in fact trying to manage downtown expansion and white to black neighborhood transitions with as little disruption and violence as possible.
[1:10:27] Ins quote I think that's such a great example of this pressure release valve framework of understanding philanthropic giving where we're trying to transform the economy to allow for greater extraction but oh look that's causing people to be angry, so what is the least we can do in terms of cost to placate. And that's essentially what this was this was a grand campaign of placating black activist who were angry at being displaced from their home too by the way didn't have anywhere to go because of racial exclusion borrowing them from some of the real estate projects that were open to white people at the time.
[1:11:06] Similarly the Ford and Rockefeller foundations under the creation of the National Urban Coalition shortly after the Inner City race riots of 1967. Now this was a short-lived civil rights advocacy nonprofit that advocated for job training education housing programs in other opportunities for blacks in America but ultimately rested on the premise that Partnerships were needed between industry and the government to develop, the Intercity tears Joan roloffs writing and critical sociology quote. As the Civil Rights Movement became more militant the Ford and Rockefeller foundation's responded by creating the National Urban coalition to transform black power into black capitalism. The latter usually denoting minority franchise ownerships. Bee nuc was a significant departure in philanthropy enlisting corporate foundations and funding Grassroots and civil rights organizations in addition to the previous Community benevolence or university and think tank support. In quote.
[1:12:05] I've seen this play out even still today when you have people in radical black activist communities things like black lives matter or casual people who are Jason's Deli getting woke for the first time and they ask you know what can I do to make a difference and for some reason especially in the black community. The answer that comes up a lot is invest in Black businesses put your money in black-owned Banks. And this idea is one of the very powerful ways that people are able to direct their restlessness their energy of being angry at the shit deal that they're getting in their lives and put it towards something that is, designed by groups like the Ford Foundation like the Rockefeller Foundation to take this violent militant energy. And make it something that can be profited off of and not disrupt the status quo. Yeah you're still being exploited by Banksy still being exploited by the small businesses but this time they're owned by black capitalist and that's okay in this larger system because we're still protecting the system. Enables us to apply all this plan to be to work needs to be done and to also protect the systems that allowed us to cumulate this wealth in the first place.
[1:13:18] That's really interesting about activist capture that you talked about that I want to come back to that but. But coming back to the way that foundations play a role in policy on I want to talk about a couple Foreign Relations examples first one coming from Latin America. And I was in the 1970s the CIA was involved in a military coup of Chili's democratically elected president. After which a military dictator was installed Pinochet many people know about this and through this dictator, death squads kidnapped tortured and killed countless teachers journalist students and more also that free market policies of austerity privatization, and export-led investment could be imposed on the unwilling population, and I think this is also part of that broader economic transformation that I mentioned earlier that was happening in the 70s and 80s were the economic Powers centered in the west were really cracking down on any, government any poor country around the world that wouldn't sign up to these new economic paradigms of export-led development and all this, and so I think that's why you saw this push to overthrow all these governments in the United States backyard anyway before this coup occurred the Ford Foundation played an important role in partnership with The Chicago School of economics.
[1:14:39] In training the people from Latin America who would eventually Implement those policies, but the Ford foundation and then the company represented had a more direct role in Latin American Affairs than just that 3 years after that Chilean coup in 1976 Argentina's president was similarly overthrown by a violent military giunta and the Ford Motor Company was quick to promote support even taking out an ad in the paper celebrating Argentina's new leadership which is not surprising since the new economic policies being implemented were straight out of the economic school that the Ford Foundation had helped start in which worst Ashley anti-worker Pro corporate ownership. In this was important to Ford Motor Company since its own factories in Argentina at the time, in fact the company even supplied vehicles to the new military giunta and this dictatorship and it in and return, the military showed up to Ford's factories and violently attacked any pro union workers in one case to giunta kidnapped Pro union workers off the factory floor. And then located them to a Detention Facility right there within for Tan Factory and tortured them for week.
[1:15:50] Anime these stories as insane as they sound shouldn't be anything new to the listeners that this show because we talked about it before, episode 28 one of our favorites we discuss the ways that international finance communities co-opted South Africa's fight against racial apartheid and the Rockefeller Foundation played an important role in this coop, when Nelson Mandela came to power peeing in prison for decades he head of the African National Congress in pursuit of achieving the goals of the freedom Charter and ultimately into apartheid, Western Powers have big problems with agency and I was in marriage of certain economic ideals with anti-apartheid goals namely that the agency wanted to return stolen land back to the people and maintain public ownership, over national resources and that's the big one for the gold from the standpoint of the West became how do we maintain our economic structures in the region also see shooting the South Africans with Racial equality at least on paper. To help do that when we turn to will the Rockefeller Foundation created the Commission in 1970 to travel to the country and recommend policies to the US government that would quote.
[1:16:55] Best response to problems posed by South Africa and it's dismaying systems of racial separation and discrimination in quote sounds good right, will ultimately the ensuing report by Kamina policies for the u.s. government that would ensure equal political participation along racial lines in South Africa, but at all cost the US to preserve access to South African oil reserve us private Investments and prevent South Africa from closing off access to their mineral Reserves. It's what we ended up with as we discussed in that episode was a country that ended racial apartheid on paper what economic apartheid became arguably much worse, and the core goals of the freedom Charter never materialized, conditions like Rockefeller get to look like philanthropic Heroes for contributing to quote black Welfare by preserving an economic system been ensured continued profit at the expense of property and self-sufficiency for black South Africans.
[1:17:49] We don't have to look in the past for you store that ideas that's happened even recently so back when Obama was trying to pass universal healthcare there was a push that this, built only passed if it was balanced and would not cost us anything more so we had to look at the Bhajan figure out what could we cut in order to try and pay for this what is it going to be at least for the government and much more expensive system even if that means all US citizens I can be paying less cuz we want to cover Insurance whatever but but how does the government do this without making a big tax bill. That was a question and one of the suggestions they had was Will let's cut down on charitable deductions and make sure that not a hundred percent reduction comes off your taxes but a smaller percentage of that.
[1:18:30] POTUS hardest of all Daniel when Hazard a guess.
[1:18:35] Pharmaceutical companies insurance companies.
[1:18:38] Will they were fighting the bill obviously very very intensely but this particular thing really pissed off the philanthropic Community because they are dependent at least a thought on these. Charitable donations if people aren't getting as much of a tax write-off and I can make as much money and then ostensibly they're not going to be able to do as much good, what do you think a lot of these organizations are doing programs that are supposed to take care of the symptoms of people having no access to healthcare or spending a lot of their money on Healthcare and if we have a Universal Health Care System then this is going to be greatly, poverty is going to reduce inequality this is going to make people not stick which is usually, important to take care of that bankruptcy problem that we see because the majority of American bankruptcies are medically related, going to make sure people have better nutrition with overall you can have a healthier happier smarter more educated less than equal population if you can pass Universal Health Care. But because their bottom line was threatened huge amounts of these build Tropic foundations including some very large ones Started Loving against universal healthcare. Fighting is Bill that is going to do a lot of the work that they claim that they wanted you, as soon as their status quo was threatened they decided it's more important to protect the system that feeds our trough. Then it is to make real action about humongous change in the lives of Americans and the people that they're supposed to be a sister.
[1:20:03] Until they help to kill that bill and turn it into the Abomination is the Affordable Care Act that we see today and whatever that's going to turn into an and happen to that is a whole other conversation. That we talked about it like that chilly but this is the kind of double-sided Too Faced world that is the philanthropic industry.
[1:20:20] When you know the problem with this doesn't in there and if we're on the topic of taxes in the way that we control these charitable donations. 20 p as at least in the eyes the IRS is all sin is equal, write Daniel so if I donate a million dollars to an opera that is seen at the same amount as good as donating $1000000 to the people of Flint so they can have water to a natural disaster response to program that make sure that people don't starve to death, there is no difference philanthropic Lisa.
[1:20:50] I was going to say David I feel like I know you're going with this but on the one hand it's like kind of hard maybe it's it would be difficult to expect our tax your institution to ascribe social value to a certain.
[1:21:03] Oh yeah.
[1:21:03] Getting but here's the here's a simple solution that I just came up with David which is, anything you donate money to that's going to have your name on it should be an immediate cancellation of your tax benefit.
[1:21:15] 31 Simple Solution but there is so many loopholes that people work their way around and figure out I am not saying that the government needs to be this Watchdog that exists to prescribe like the ethical considerations of all this is worth saving X lies and this is only saving you know how do we rank the art or culture against the human life you can't do that. We really don't see difference in this and that means we have a lot. Philanthropic donations of Charity that's going out there that is paying for things that is ultimately self-serving or status quo intensifying. An education is one of the largest areas that receive philanthropic grants. But most of this money is going to fuel this this huge amount of donations and charity with entering the education system is going to private schools and expensive public institutions and University.
[1:22:06] This is a further intensifying effect on the inequality that we're seeing people aren't unding these poor schools the schools that don't have enough money because their alumni, aren't making the huge amounts of money because they're being held down by this any quality that that's exist because their education was worse because the system that they're in his worst so that school gets worse me while the schools that are able to generate very successful wealthy well-connected alumni, are able to take him more money from those alumni and it allows them to intensify this process and so the very philanthropic grant-giving that exist in order to fuel this education ends up intensifying the inequality, bing cherries more philanthropy and makes the problem even worse so huge amount of philanthropy is actually going to systems that make any quality worse believe it or not.
[1:22:53] This is ultimately because of the tax benefits that we receive from making these charitable donations and if we didn't have this this impetus to give, and and receive a very. Instant gratification on it be on the very type of Charity and charitable giving reasons that we have as individuals yeah the bottom line will be impacted a lot but maybe we would see huge shift in how money is being spent, and what people considered important passionate to them and these high-powered schools would see a lot less money coming into them and we would see money turned instead towards where can I make the most. Difference where can I do the most good and I'm not saying that we need to get rid of the terrible foundations I'm sure there's a math equation some Economist to working out constantly justifying and whatever think-tank there in that their foundations funding is perfect. But there is definitely an end and has historically been a question of is a tax deduction for charity and philanthropic donations a good idea. And for most of our history we said no for a very obvious reasons people like Teddy Roosevelt were very against this idea.
[1:23:56] But now increasingly we just accept philanthropy as of course it's good. Of course it can't be anything bad there's problematic parts of it but overall turn it could and so we shouldn't question it, we shouldn't say we should change the system around because it is doing good and we don't want to think that but we never talk about what good is it doing, can we be doing more good or are we actively harming things and intensifying the status quo that creepies problems in the first place and that if you only get one thing out of this episode and you forgotten all the Carnegie stuff we talked about just take away that point, it's okay to question pool have to be okay to say yeah you're doing good but I don't trust entirely why you're doing it and what good you decided to do.
[1:24:37] Although with the caveat being that there are a lot of criticism of Charity David Bowie, that are used to justify taking away support from people, you know kind of going back to the Carnegie idea of how it's so selfish to give a man a quarter because you've injured him and, and now he can't go make that quarter for himself and now he's just going to turn lazy cuz a lot of people that conflate this idea that philanthropy is bad because, is surge an idiot logical function in a tree shapes our world and undemocratic way that sometimes gets conflated with the idea of, we should assist people they should have cyst themselves and therefore we can feel Justified pulling the rug out beneath Public Funding for school education or Public Funding for programs that genuinely Provide support for people right. And you mentioned charitable giving in and that's the whole nother Flipside to this discussion is we as individuals who take part in this process like I mentioned earlier the five hundred million dollars that Red Cross got will that came from I mean yes Foundation incorporation but also from you and me people who, saw that happens it will what can I do to help and that was our best option that we could perceive and so we sent money that way in, yeah we started recording for this episode yesterday actually David and we were about an hour and we decided.
[1:25:58] It wasn't going the way we planned it wasn't worth that we didn't have a focus we need to go back to the drawing board, and reconvene today and I think the reason that happens because we were trying to cover too much right these foundations and philanthropist that had them really function through this creation of Networks. Nonprofits University relationships like I alluded to earlier and we were trying to dress too many things within those networks including these individual small nonprofits and our own charitable giving us individuals, and it was just becoming confusing and long-winded and, so we took it this step back and decide let's just focus on the foundations and philanthropist themselves because we can always come back to this topic and expand on how the smaller organizations play a role in all this and how we as individuals, might be contributing to the perpetuation of some of these paradoxes but there's another difficulty David in the end that's that, you just can't come out and say that nonprofits and ngos and the social change organizations.
[1:26:59] Function within some larger evil sister you can't. You can't just say that initially because the truth is that so many nonprofits and other organizations that are supported by these corporate. In philanthropic foundations they do a lot of good in the world and we can't sit here and say that because the Ford Foundation sponsored the creation of the, local neighborhood organizations in service of promoting civil rights in America we can say that the work being done on the ground was wrong. We can't say that those activists like you mentioned that end up getting captured by the non-profit industrial system are doing bad things. Right and just because the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation wants to revolutionize farming in India and Africa by commercializing and patting season destroying the base of small-scale farmers ultimately make food production sustainable and provide a way forward in the face of climate change like we talked about in episode 52 Killing Fields are episode on pesticides. That doesn't mean that a local African, using money supply by a nonprofit funded by a regional organization which is funded through grant money administered by The Gates Foundation, we can say that this local using that money to connect farmers in her community with suppliers and with communication resources and with other viable things that that connection, invalidates her work.
[1:28:23] Doesn't because the bottom line is that work that she's doing maybe something that needs to get done regardless of where the funding comes from and here's the point I'm trying to make if the funding to do this work, is coming from a position of unaccountable and undemocratic sources that are headed by individuals of unprecedented wealth and power, secured more often than not through exploitative means then there is reason to question the motives like you said it's it's good to question the philanthropy. Because it get the work itself may be important but it's also likely that is being co-opted to serve, nefarious purpose or some underlying it illogical framework that we didn't agree to yes it may be important to deliver vaccines to children, but should we then allow vaccines to be delivered to children on the condition that those vaccines are patent and monopolize in the process for profitable game.
[1:29:18] And that's exactly the point the work of these nonprofits do good but that's exactly why foundations want a part of it. Because they can take something that is good. Integrated with an ideologies that supports their Carnegie inspired core beliefs of wealth accumulation in competition is why companies like Lockheed Martin have supported the NAACP and the Urban League is why Ford and Rockefeller were integral in the early formation of the NAACP it's why the Rockefeller foundation help steer South Africa AMC away from its freedom Charter co-opting the cause of human civil rights to legitimize economic exploitation. It's why these foundations have been so Keen to fund American Civil Rights organizations at the Grassroots level because true, movement of solidarity between oppressed people represent one of the greatest threats to capital accumulation on this Earth, but if you can segment and divide those mass movements into fragmented organizations each dependent on external funding. Under the influence of corporate and Foundation approved leadership you can ensure that those protests and movements remain non threatening to the status quo while preserving an image of being some patriotic and benevolent Giver.
[1:30:36] Look I know we feel powerless in the scale of the amount of money that is being tossed around in this world. What are you and I supposed to do Daniel against somebody who has a hundred billion dollars because the foundation is been 3 billion dollars a year and especially with a lot of this money is really truly honestly going, stupid causes even if it could maybe be a better way of doing it or it's slightly exploit a good is being done and who are we to say that we should question the system, but I think we need to and we really need to remember. That is the very first thing that we can do here we can call the question that maybe not everything that Bill and Melinda Gates do with their Foundation is immediately only good. We should look at it they will why are they doing this how are they benefiting from pushing this Charter School narrative, is it really great idea to turn to industrialized agriculture in places like Africa it's okay to call the same question because even though you're not spending all this money, you can say well why are they spending this money that's an important concept that we should all be doing with everything that we encounter all the time a second point is we should be considering.
[1:31:42] Should we really be giving all this tax deductible credit to our charitable givings yes this seems like a radical idea first but time and time again in the shown that much of this money is being directed to places where it's not really benefiting people there's a lot of bad Charities there's a lot of foundations that are essentially tax shelters and all of this is taking advantage of the fact that we can give money to cause it probably isn't that good and get tax credit for us and and often times profit off of that process because our friends are family are working in these foundations making huge amounts of money and getting credit on their CV ultimately allows him to jump into the Private Industry in a way that allows them to exploit all the rest of us that much better. So it's okay to question the fact that may be charitable donations should not be huge tax credits and should be reduced in order to get rid of some of this secondary personal profiting incentive of the process. 3rd we really need to remember who these people are these philanthropist by and large are extremely wealthy. White men old white men and they are so far removed from the rest of us by their billions of dollars by there at Love Field Apartments. By their Waldorf beach homes if they don't understand the problems that we're going through. They spent billions of dollars trying to understand these problems and trying to get to the solutions that you and I already know, we saw this in early in this episode with Bill Gates trying to investigate what's the problem with these classrooms when teachers have known for decades what the problem is.
[1:33:11] The dollars later they came to the same conclusion that all of us already knew and it's not just the billionaires themselves are doing this with the people running these Foundation pulling in the six-figure salaries they're just as out of touch as the people writing the checks. So it's okay to remember that these people don't know what's best for you because you know what's best for you because you are in these communities you are living these problems and therefore because you understand that you are an expert. There's no think tank filled with experts try to understand poverty better than the people who are actually living in poverty. The people who really know what it would take for them personally to pull themselves out of that. You have the answers and Solutions in these communities you can put these into practice a lot of times by yourself without that giant philanthropist check 10 even if you are if somebody comes in and says what can we do you have the answer for that it's okay to reach out and say I know I have an idea let's try this, and it's something that still have to piss are trying to take away from each and every one of us that individual ability to say I know how to have change. I know how to make the world a better place because they want to be our daddy writing a check saying no I know what's best for you but we can push back against then say no I know what's best for me. And if you would listen to that and maybe we can actually do something and make the world a better place.
[1:34:27] I couldn't say it any better than that David so I just want to leave you with one story short one short story.
[1:34:35] There was a there was a man a Titan of Industry named John Emery Andres he lived between 1841 and 1934. He became wealthy through a chemical manufacturing company. As well as several real estate and other Investments that he made during his life and when he died he left 45% of his estate to the creation of the surdna foundation which today manages 1 billion dollars.
[1:35:02] And sign up David I think it's always interesting when people describe these billionaires as philanthropic when the size of their foundations only get bigger over time like clearly they're not gifting their money away when it somehow makes profitable returns. Anyway today some of mr. and dressed as descendants are unhappy with the way the current Foundation spend money on, social justice projects went according to them they're great great ancestor was an unabashed capitalist according to two cousins that object to the foundation's new leadership the foundation recently gave to the neighborhood funders group. Which is an organization that supports place-based Community LED efforts that Target the root causes of Economic and racial inequalities. And their eyes funding like this means that they let John down after off according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently John was a fan of the extractive economy and was known for paying his workers as little as possible and lecturing them on the importance of thrift. So I guess to his family the idea of spending his money on solving the root causes of Economic and racial inequalities just isn't appropriate.
[1:36:15] I guess so Daniel.
[1:36:18] But you know David at the end that's just a lot to think about.
[1:36:21] As always but think about it we hope you will you can find more information on everything we talked about today as well as links to that citations needed podcast episodes as well as the full transcript of the show on our website at Ashley. O r g.
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[1:37:15] We are also on all your favorite social media networks at ashes ashes cast next week Daniel I'm sorry to say when you're going to have to tackle this episode by yourself.
[1:37:24] But David that's going to leave me feeling really lonely.
[1:37:28] Okay well I'll tell you what I'll do with you but that'll be the topics to spend some time with yourself this week reach inside a figure out what it's like to be alone because next week we're going to be remembering that while we may feel alone We're All in This Together. I hope you'll tune in for that.
[1:37:44] I don't really have to make any great leap of imagination for this one David.
[1:37:48] Yeah you and me both.
[1:37:51] All right well until then.
[1:37:52] This is ashes ashes.