Monday, December 21, 2009

Predatory Pseudo-Philanthropy

The accurate term for the highly manipulative spending which Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton family are engaging in is “predatory pseudo-philanthropy.” It is the logically evolved and naturally-conceived outcome of the predatory capitalist approach of these billionaire CEOs.

With predatory pseudo-philanthropy, non-profit foundations are set up to operate as vehicles with which the CEOs can acquire control of public institutions. It is these foundations which allow them to maneuver their power, and permit them to exert great influence and take possession of the functioning at the top levels, all under the guise of some sort of "generosity" to chronically under-funded, urban public school systems.

In the realm of public education, the foundations make tremendous “gifts” of money and personnel to school institutions (at local, state, and federal levels). The “giving” is their pathway to control. Foundations admit this goal outright and call it "venture philanthropy." The unsuspecting American public has been fooled into believing these astronomically wealthy individuals are simply being nice and are incapable of doing any wrong. What the American public believes is wrong.

All this reminds me of a friend who was repeatedly sexually abused by her father when she was a girl. As a woman she still could not throw out the beautiful riding saddle he had given her -- even though its presence repulsed her. As a child she had loved riding horses, and his "gift" made it easier for him to get what he wanted from her. Such is the essence of pure manipulation.

John Perkins (“Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”) explains the mindset of these CEO-types and the nature of their predatory capitalism in his new book, “Hoodwinked." Here are some excerpts:

"The guiding philosophy for this particular form of capitalism [the one promoted by Milton Friedman] is an uncompromising belief in the privatization of resources, the granting of unfettered powers to corporate executives, and the encouragement of debt so extreme that it results in contemporary modes of enslavement – for countries and individuals alike.

Based on the assumption that the CEOs running our most powerful corporations constitute a special class of royalty who, unlike normal people, do not need to be governed by regulations, it totally altered geopolitics."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"We have accepted the cancer, the predatory mutant virus of capitalism, as the norm."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"It is a system that evolved through the subterfuge and economic cunning of people who freely move back and forth between corporations and the U.S. government (collectively, the corporatocracy)."

On the model’s policies and techniques:

"…the abandonment of laws that force corporations to adhere to strict environmental, social, truth-in-advertising, and other standards that protect the rights of the general populace; assumption of larger amounts of personal, corporate, and governmental debt; privatization of utilities, prisons, and other “public” institutions; increased police surveillance under the guise of “homeland security”; and the use of public lands to serve corporate interests."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Members of the corporatocracy are a, “… club of CEO powerbrokers of business and finance who dine with the like of senators, members of congress, regulators, and presidents [and others]."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The ruling elites—the members of the corporatocracy, “… are not chosen by the people, do not serve limited terms, and answer to no one…They wield tremendous influence in the halls of both local and national governments. Almost no politician gets elected without money that flows through them and their stockholders. They control the mainstream media, either through direct ownership or advertising budgets."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lobbyists are “one of the most effective political weapons in the corporatocracy’s arsenal. These men and women make sure that politicians draft laws that support corporate needs, even then those laws countermand campaign promises and disregard pubic opinion.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Communications networks work in tandem with the lobbyists. Corporatocracy dominance of the mainstream media has grown steadily, paralleling the rise of Friedman capitalism. In 1983, fifty corporations controlled that vast majority of all news media in the United States. By 1992, that had been reduced to less than thirty. In 2004, only six huge corporations … owned most of the industry…In both their news reporting and their editorials, they promote “free trade” agreements, privatization, and the other polices that have led to the current crises."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Members of the corporatocracy are not part of a conspiracy, but they are characterized by an obsession with winning. They will invest vast amounts of money to get their way."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"We often justify the unscrupulous actions of the modern robber barons because they contribute money to philanthropy and the arts."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"... the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been severely criticized for investing its endowment in companies that are accused of contributing to poverty in the very Third World countries where that foundation’s stated goal is to relieve poverty.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"As a young founder and CEO, Gates had a reputation for brutally beating down competitors. He and Microsoft have been attacked in many countries for business practices that at best are morally questionable and at worst illegal."

Read more about the corporatocracy's takeover of urban public education:

5 comments:

Michael Fiorillo said...

As always, another fine post.

For economy of expression, when speaking out against the privatization of the schools, I use the word "malanthropy."

Malanthropy is the use of untaxed capital - much of it accumulated through successful lobbying and purchasing of elected officials to reduce income and capital gains taxes - to fund programs and policies that further the intertwined financial and ideological interests of the malanthropist.

This process has the powerful "benefits" of

- privatizing and redirecting the circulation of resources away from democratic structures.

- privatizing and buying policy.

- providing an altruistic, and totally fictitious, gloss over the deeper purposes for which this capital is being used.

This is clearly the case with the Gates, Walton, Broad and other foundations: the money is pushing programs and discourses that further a narrow range of private interests, in the name of "helping" people.

It's almost a kind of perpetual motion machine: the oligarchs use their wealth to develop the political juice that results in lower taxes for them, weakening the public sphere, and then use that freed-up capital to expand their influence through a nominally non-profit vehicle that further inflates their power, wealth and status at the expense of the majority, and at the expense of democracy.

nikto said...

"To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." -- President Theodore Roosevelt
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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
Benjamin Franklin
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"Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money."
Thomas Hobbes
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"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln
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"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power." Franklin D. Roosevelt
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"We can have democracy in this country or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both." Justice Louis Brandeis
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Happy Holidays!

andrew said...

The economy of the United States no longer has the capacity to maintain a functioning public school system. The now accelerating destruction of public education will be wrapped up in all kinds of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo--words like "turnaround" and "restart"--but Obama/Duncan has been tasked with destabilizing public schools and building the case that universal public education was a noble but failed experiment.

Whatever wealth that hasn't been turned over to the banks must be devoted to the only "healthy" sector of the US economy left, war making and the weapons trade, and to keeping our Chinese creditors pacified.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/27/AR2009122701521.html?hpid=sec-education

Ted said...

malanthropy - excellent term to capture a hallmark of post-Reagan economics and corporate social policy. Deserves wider circulation.

nikto said...

I posted this same entry on Jim Horn's Schoolsmatter site, after seeing this cartoon on that site:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DxJK5KDA8YI/S0dExUso3HI/AAAAAAAABC4/TP82yjbnHAY/s1600-h/resegregation+charters.jpg

It may be impossible to stem the Charter tide at this time (?),
but the best time to defeat the Charters is after they come in & beging to establish them selves.

I feel certain that most parents will, in time, become disillusioned by the Profit-Charters' corner-cutting and lack of accountability/transparency,
which will become difficult,
if not impossible, to defend,
in many cases.

Once the PRIVATEERS own a school, THEY MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE AND RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS AS A RESULT.
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Maybe the best (only?) remaining way to fight Charter Schools' takeovers is to start a NATIONAL CAMPAIGN of HIGH EXPECTATIONS for the Charters in the form of:

"YOU'D BETTER DO RIGHT FOR AMERICA"--Bring sky-high test scores, send all students to college for 4 FULL years (or it doesn't count),
have lots of experiential field trips, contribute positive activities to
THE COMMUNITIES that contain the schools, and above all, MONITOR THE STOCK RETURNS AND PROFIT$$$ OF THE SCHOOL MANAGEMENT GROUPS AND POST THEM LOCALLY ON AN ONGOING BASIS TO CONTRAST WITH ANY SHORTCOMINGS WHICH LOCAL GROUPS POINT OUT IN THE FOR-PROFIT CHARTER SCHOOLS' MANAGEMENT.
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Hypothetical Example:

"The 'Winner's Only' Charter School of Maywood, has cut field trips by 2/3 this school year, and yet, the Toxico Group, which manages the school, along with a portfolio of 47 schools, is currently enjoying a profit-margin of 52% at the same time."

Parents unite against this "PROFIT OVER KIDS"
policy of this Charter School Company!!!!!!!!!
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The previous hypothetical "announcement" ,may indicate the best way to handle for-profit charters---ATTACK THEM DIRECTLY IN PUBLIC, by creating doubt about the opaqueness of their management, to make the Public DEMAND transparency, and PUT PRESSURE on them to MINIMIZE THEIR PROFITS or risk ENDANGERING EDUCATION FOR AMERICA'S CHILDREN!!!!!!!!

And we all know, it's all about The Kids.

It may be politically next-to-impossible to stop the greased wheels of politically-arranged School Takeover as they move sweepingly from community to community.

But I believe the greatest period of CHARTER SCHOOL VULNERABILITY TO CRITICS is still ahead of us. WE MUST ATTACK THE PRIVATES, JUST AS THEY ATTACKED THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

We must push into the Lexicon,
Words like "FAILURE" and "TRANSPARENCY" (or the lack thereof), phrases like "CHEATING THE PUBLIC FOR PROFITS" and "STOCK-MARKET INSTEAD OF KIDS", and many other negative attack-phrases and ASSOCIATE THEM WITH PRIVATE CHARTERS EVERYWHERE.

It was done TO US in Public Education.

We can DO IT BACK.

Do we have the will?
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