美国国家公共电台 NPR Generous Giving Or Phony Philanthropy? A Critique Of Well-Meaning 'Winners'

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The writer Anand Giridharadas has a critical view of American philanthropy. He's been writing about people who say they are changing the world for the better, but those efforts largely benefit the wealthy themselves.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Rich people are playing a double game. On one hand, there's no question they're giving away more money than has ever been given away in history. But I argue in this book that we also have one of the more predatory elites² in history, despite that philanthropy, despite that desire to change the world.

GREENE: Giridharadas spent time talking with affluent³ elites and has written a book that's called "Winners Take All: The Elite¹ Charade⁴ Of Changing The World." He argues that Internet entrepreneurs, innovators, even wealthy foundation directors tend to fight social problems only in ways that do not threaten people at the top. A new app developer helps part-time workers avoid cash shortages rather than fight for better pay. Foundations spend billions of dollars to help poor people in ways that really just mitigate⁵ an unfair economy in which the wealthiest have a larger and larger share. That's the world that Giridharadas sees, and he spoke⁶ about it with Steve Inskeep.

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE⁷: What bothers you about philanthropies who are attempting what they might call market-based solutions to problems, trying to solve a problem by selling a product, by starting a company, that sort of thing?

GIRIDHARADAS: There's this idea that has taken hold in our time, which is the idea of the win-win. And win-win sounds great, right? A win-win is the idea that essentially⁸ the winners can profit while helping⁹ other people. They can do well by doing good. Doing well by doing good has become the mantra of so many elites in our time. What this often ends up meaning in practice is that social change that offers a kickback¹⁰ to the winners is favored, and forms of social change that don't are not. So let's take some examples.

INSKEEP: Yeah.

GIRIDHARADAS: You know, if you take the issue of empowering women - well, in theory, many, many people would be in favor of that. But let's get down to the brass¹¹ tacks¹² of what do we do? Well, if you look at most rich countries, things like maternity¹³ leave and universal day care and, you know, various other social policies to actually give women and families the opportunity to play all of their roles seem to be what it takes. Well, what's the problem with that? It's kind of expensive for the winners. Frankly¹⁴, rich people would probably have to pay higher taxes in America to empower women in that way. So what happens? Do rich people ignore that demand of women for empowerment? No. They offer a light facsimile of change. They offer a win-win change. They offer change that doesn't change anything fundamental. Lean-in circles - let's get women together. Let's get them in a circle. Let's get them to, you know, mentor¹⁵ each other and raise their hands. This is the kind of change the winners can get on board with - change that changes nothing fundamental, change that keeps what they need, change that doesn't change their world.

INSKEEP: Let me ask a bottom-line question then. Are you simply saying in a fundamental way you want more government intervention¹⁶, more government spending, more government control, somewhat higher taxes to pay for that rather than private solutions?

GIRIDHARADAS: I think there's no question that we have lived on the receiving end of 40 years of dogma that government is bad and the market is good. We have been living amid market fundamentalism without necessarily realizing it. You know, it's easy to denigrate¹⁷ government. Let's just stop and pause and reflect on how well the United States of America functions in the spectrum¹⁸ of human societies out there. It's easy to be down on our government, even under this presidency¹⁹. And I am not calling for government to take over and control things. I'm calling for government to stop being shamed and discredited²⁰ and pushed out of the picture.

INSKEEP: So let me ask one other thing because you are critiquing people who feel that they're generous, feel that they want to help the world, people at Internet firms who classically believe they're trying to make the world a better place, people who have made millions of dollars and wanted to get - want to give it away. But you connect these people - quite a few of whom surely are politically liberal - with President Trump²¹. What is the link between people that you're criticizing and President Trump?

GIRIDHARADAS: A lot of well-meaning liberals - and it's going to - it hurts to hear this, but a lot of well-meaning liberals paved the road for Trump, and they did so in two ways - first of all, by peddling²² a lot of pseudo-change instead of actually fixing the American opportunity structure, instead of actually repairing the American Dream over the last 30, 40 years. By doing that, they allowed some of the biggest problems in this country to fester for decades and not be solved. And I think it's very plausible²³ that had we actually been solving those problems of trade and education and social mobility²⁴ Donald Trump would simply not have had the oxygen that his conflagration²⁵ required. But they also enable Trump in a second way, which is they contributed to the correct intuition across large parts of this country that elite Americans have rigged the game for themselves.

INSKEEP: You even take one further step and argue that President Trump is essentially a parody²⁶ of the sort of philanthropist you don't like - trust me, I'm very rich, I'm going to fix this problem for you, don't worry about it.

GIRIDHARADAS: One of the most disturbing things to me in reporting this book is I started to realize that a lot of Donald Trump's language and intellectual moves - if that is not an exaggeration - actually took root in the so-called philanthro-capitalists of the last generation. So when President Trump says only I can fix it, that idea doesn't start with him. That's actually something that has been pushed by these private-sector change agents for years. They are specially²⁷ capable of solving social problems. When Donald Trump says, yeah, yeah, I manufactured stuff in China and Mexico, but, you know, that's going to help me figure out how to make sure that never happens again, again, that is a move that America's plutocrats have been making for a long time. The arsonists²⁸ are the best firefighters.

INSKEEP: Anand Giridharadas is the author of "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade Of Changing The World." Thanks.

GIRIDHARADAS: Thank you, Steve.

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