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When a member of the mafia is old and on their death bed, they call in a priest so that they can confess their sins and get into paradise. Winners Take All is a book that argues that wealthy philanthropists are no better. It calls out people who have worked at corporations, banks, and the like that have on one hand caused great harm to the world through sweatshops, pollution, and a slew of other terrible things, then go on to spearhead charities that claim to try to improve the world somewhere else. The question becomes whether they are causing more harm than good, and maybe they should start improving the world by ceasing to do all of the terrible things that they have profited before worrying about any other forms of philanthropy.
I think most people with an ounce of sense will be well aware of this sort of thing. Plenty of eyes are rolled when Apple claims to be part of this or that charity. It’s nice and all, but are people in those Foxconn factories they use still throwing themselves out of windows? How about the company’s steadfast resistance to right to repair legislation? Their claims of wanting to make the world a better place ring hollow when one considers things like this.
The book mentions several times that these business people and captains of industry really don’t like being called out on their bullshit. They need to be coddled and told how wonderful they are if one wants to convince them to donate their money and expertise. There is a ton of ego surrounding these people.
Some particularly well-heeled individuals are interviewed in the book, and they get very uncomfortable when asked about the bad things they’ve done. One is a billionaire heiress who donates to several charities on the one hand, but on the other, her family owns New Port cigarettes. So, she’s essentially using blood money to fund these groups. Another example in the book is the Sackler family, who donate quite a lot of money to charities. They also own Purdue Pharma, which is the company responsible for America’s oxycontin problem where quite a lot of people became addicted to opioids. Again, does it matter that a wealthy person is supporting various charities if they’ve cause quite a lot of damage beforehand?
Winners Take All brings up examples again and again, while also discussing the myopic vision of the people running these charities. It’s a growing problem as people who work at banks and large corporations are being brought onto the boards of major charities. The author refers to this entire realm as MarketWorld, where business people used to working within markets try to apply business solutions to everything, but seem not to be able to see the forest from the trees. He questions how much they want to help fix things when what is really needed is systemic change that would require dismantling the mechanisms that allowed them to become rich in the first place.
As such, of course they don’t want to change things. They’ll create programs that may cause something to happen somewhere else, but they have no intention of removing the cancer that is making the whole system sick to begin with.
There are interviews with people at these charities that quite cognizant of the situation. They don’t want to quit, but rather try and fix things from the inside. They are well aware of the systemic issues that need to be eliminated, but they also know full well that these rich people don’t want to get rid of them, nor do they want to be blamed for the societal woes that they helped to cause. Nevertheless, there are some at these charities who still want to try and push them working within this MarketWorld apparatus. So far, it doesn’t seem to be having an impact. Moreover, some of the billionaires interviewed begrudgingly admit that perhaps the only thing that actually would get rid of these systemic problems is bloody revolution.
The basic premise of the book shouldn’t surprise many. It’s not new that many charities are inefficient and their effectiveness is questionable. However, it was interesting to read just how deep elites’ control of these things has become and how much of it has been reduced to theatre meant to help them feel better about themselves so that they can bask in the glow of heroism. They don’t want to save the world but rather find new vehicles to further boost their egos.
Pennywhether
pennywhether@posteo.net
September 12, 2021