There are several reasons philanthrocapitalism doesn’t work as well as we need it to. First, it absolves us of reviving dysfunctional democratic responses. Our systems for addressing social needs are broken, but the solution is to fix them at the local level, not bypass them altogether. Second, it’s a massively inefficient redistribution of capital. There’s an enormous amount of humanitarian and civil engineering that is not sexy at all, and may never catch the eye of a major donor. Waiting for earmarked handouts from the digital Robber Barons is a lopsided way to address a broad portfolio of
...more
