Small Change: Why Business Won't Save the World

Zusatztext An important corrective to the wishful view that bringing capitalist principles to philanthropy will be good for both endeavors. Robert Kuttner! coeditor of The American Prospect and author of Everything for Sale There are all too few people in today's complex and confusing world who have either the courage or the clarity to speak truth to power. Michael Edwards has both! for which this well-researched! solidly argued! and levelheaded book provides ample evidence. Gita Sen! Professor! Indian Institute of Management Bangalore; Adjunct Professor! Harvard School of Public Health; and Research Coordinator! Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) Anyone who wants the truth of philanthropy in America should read this book. Robert B. Reich! Professor of Public Policy! University of California! Berkeley and author of Supercapitalism Informationen zum Autor Michael Edwards is a writer and activist affiliated with the think tank Demos in New York, the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and the Brooks World Poverty Institute at Manchester University in the UK. Previously, he was director of the Ford Foundation's Governance and Civil Society Program and worked for the World Bank, Oxfam, and Save the Children. Klappentext A new movement is afoot that promises to save the world by applying the magic of the market to the challenges of social change. Its supporters argue that using business principles to solve global problems is far more effective than more traditional approaches. What could be wrong with that? Almost everything, argues former Ford Foundation director Michael Edwards. In this hard-hitting, controversial exposé, he marshals a wealth of evidence to reveal that in reality, a market approach hurts more than it helps. Real change will come when business acts more like civil society, not the other way around.Irrational Exuberance The Rise of Philanthrocapitalism It is six o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and the Swan Lake Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary is cleaning up after its latest community rummage sale. Not much money changed hands today, but plenty of warm clothes did, much needed with the onset of winter in this upstate New York town. Prices varied according to people's ability to pay, and those who couldn't pay at all like the mother who brought all her money in dimes, quarters, and pennies inside a plastic bag were simply given what they needed, and driven home to boot. Imagine what this would have cost me at Walmart, she told her driver. In some ways, there is nothing special about this story, which is repeated a million times a day in civil society groups that act as centers of solidarity and sharing. In another sense, it is profoundly important, because it represents a way of living in the world that is rooted in equality, love, and justice, a radical departure from the values of competition and commerce that increasingly rule our world. It is not that the members of the Ladies Auxiliary are free from concerns about money and what things cost like everyone else, they have to make a living and raise funds to support their work, and they keep meticulous accounts. But when it comes to their responsibilities as citizens, they play by a different set of rules, which are grounded in rights that are universal, not restricted by access according to one's income; they recognize the intrinsic value of relationships that can't be traded off against production costs or profit; and they live out philanthropy's original meaning as love of humankind. Over many generations, community groups and social movements have protected these principles in their work to attack discrimination and injustice, alleviate poverty, and protect the natural world. Across the universe, meanwhile, a very different form of philanthro...

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Michael Edwards is a writer and activist affiliated with the think tank Demos in New York, the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and the Brooks World Poverty Institute at Manchester University in the UK. Previously, he was director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil Society Program and worked for the World Bank, Oxfam, and Save the Children.

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A new movement is afoot that promises to save the world by applying the magic of the market to the challenges of social change. Its supporters argue that using business principles to solve global problems is far more effective than more traditional approaches. What could be wrong with that? Almost everything, argues former Ford Foundation director Michael Edwards. In this hard-hitting, controversial exposé, he marshals a wealth of evidence to reveal that in reality, a market approach hurts more than it helps. Real change will come when business acts more like civil society, not the other way around.

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Irrational Exuberance

The Rise of “Philanthrocapitalism”

It is six o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, and the Swan Lake Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary is cleaning up after its latest community rummage sale. Not much money changed hands today, but plenty of warm clothes did, much needed with the onset of winter in this upstate New York town. Prices varied according to people’s ability to pay, and those who couldn’t pay at all — like the mother who brought all her money in dimes, quarters, and pennies inside a plastic bag — were simply given what they needed, and driven home to boot. “Imagine what this would have cost me at Walmart,” she told her driver.

In some ways, there is nothing special about this story, which is repeated a million times a day in civil society groups that act as centers of solidarity and sharing. In another sense, it is profoundly important, because it represents a way of living in the world that is rooted in equality, love, and justice, a radical departure from the values of competition and commerce that increasingly rule our world. It is not that the members of the Ladies Auxiliary are free from concerns about money and what things cost — like everyone else, they have to make a living and raise funds to support their work, and they keep meticulous accounts. But when it comes to their responsibilities as citizens, they play by a different set of rules, which are grounded in rights that are universal, not restricted by access according to one’s income; they recognize the intrinsic value of relationships that can’t be traded off against production costs or profit; and they live out philanthropy’s original meaning as “love of humankind.” Over many generations, community groups and social movements have protected these principles in their work to attack discrimination and injustice, alleviate poverty, and protect the natural world.

Across the universe, meanwhile, a very different form of philanthropy is taking shape. It has been nicknamed philan-throcapitalism by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green1, and its followers believe that business thinking and market methods will save the world — and make some of us a fortune along the way. Bobby Shriver, Bono’s partner in the Red brand of products, hopes that sales will help “buy a house in the Hamptons” while simultaneously swelling the coffers of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.2 Larry Ellison, who founded Oracle, thinks that “the profit motive could be the best tool for solving the world’s problems, more effective than any government”3 — until government has to bail you out, of course, as it did for large swaths of American finance and industry in the aftermath of the financial crash in September 2008.

“If you put a gun to my head and asked which one has done more good for the world, the Ford Foundation or Exxon,” says Charles Munger, vice chair of Berkshire Hathaway, “I’d …