Cathy Fitzpatrick on "Civil society and capitalism: a new landscape"

Cathy Fitzpatrick — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:35:20 +0100

I've noticed that as the Marxist lexicon of the 1960s-1980s fades, discredited by the fall of so many Marxist regimes, the notions contained in that lexicon now often seem migrate to the term "civil society". Enormous hope is placed on social movements to affect change and take power and install "change" in a "better world," often without any democratic election -- democracy is more and more discredited as run by "corrupt politicians," etc.

In that ideology, there isn't much to indicate that authoritarian and particularly socialist states are *not* better at controlling corruption; in fact, the nature of these closed systems in fact encourages corruption and enables it to thrive. If you look at the Transparency International index, it's the the Marxist/post-Marxist states of Africa and Eurasia that are the most corrupt, not the capitalist states of the West. Oh, that's not to say there isn't corruption in capitalism, but it's the kind of corruption for which there are more remedies, through investigative reporting, citizens' action, and independent judicial systems.

No, "civil society" -- which these days unfortunately has come to be constricted in meaning, to indicate "NGOs" or "progressive social movements" -- may not always have the power to change authoritarian and corrupt practices. Only democratically elected governments do -- that's "civil society" writ large.

While there really has been a lot of hype around "socially-responsible business," what Michael Edwards seems to be saying is that the capitalist system should be overthrown in favour of a socialist system, making businesses "responsible" by putting them out of the business of making profit. Sorry, that's just not effective, as we have seen time and again not only the Soviet experience but in countries like Venezuela. It is better that civil society in a free, capitalist setting has been able to hedge business with a demand for accountability, rather than it be busy destroying wealth and value.

Michael Edwards should really be called to account himself for invoking the "One Laptop Per Child" program as some kind of sucess for technological corporations. It's not, and the tech companies themselves have stepped back from it, and the program has been furiously debated by techs themselves. It is ill-advised, and too high-priced. And in my view, the OLPC is placing totemic symbols of "technological progress" in the hands of children, completely bypassing -- and infantalizing! -- adults who need salaries themselves, and need to be able to make their own technological purchasing decisions by their own lights. These philanthropically-minded corporations would be better off providing adults, especially women, with education and salaries rather than carving out children and isolating them in a world mainly hooking up to video games.

I agree that the trend toward demanding that non-profits behave like corporations, with strenuous demands for "professionalism" in order to obtain funding, and enthusiastic touting of "social entrepreneurs," often rigorously selected by socially-Darwinistic "success" criteria, can really be destructive to grass-roots, volunteer *and amateur* civic groups. It can discourage and de-energize them. But it's important rather to have a whole ecology of groups, a range from amateur to professional. The answer isn't to destroy business and capitalism, which provide wealth and jobs for communities, but to bring them to account successfully, and that requires democratic government as well.

Ultimately, I fear that a claim that sees "philanthrocapitalism" as an evil is banking on some sort of revolutionary social movement to take power, and that inevitably has very unpleasant and unaccountable after-effects.

Only connect: civil society, philanthropy, capitalism, Simon Zadek

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:24:27 +0100

Michael Edwards's essay "Philanthrocapitalism: after the goldrush" (19 March 2008) raises the alarm over what he sees as the hidden failures in applying the power of business to address pervasive social and environmental challenges. The core argument is that "philanthocapitalism" has been hyped too much and delivered too little; and that it undermines civil society, or at best distracts it from its historic task of using the structures and disciplines of democratically controlled governance to hold power to account.

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Cathy Fitzpatrick on "Civil society and capitalism: a new landscape"

Only connect: civil society, philanthropy, capitalism, Simon Zadek