Plutocrats at Work: How Big Philanthropy Undermines Democracy

The crabbed millionaire's puzzle (J.S. Pughe, Library of Congress)

By Joanne Barkan - Fall 2013
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Big philanthropy was born in the United States in the early twentieth century. The Russell
Sage Foundation received its charter in 1907, the Carnegie Corporation in 1911, and the
Rockefeller Foundation in 1913. These were strange new creaturesquite unlike traditional
charities. They had vastly greater assets and were structured legally and financially to last
forever. In addition, each was governed by a self-perpetuating board of private trustees; they
were affiliated with no religious denomination; and they adopted grand, open-ended missions
along the lines of improve the human condition. They were launched, in essence, as
immense tax-exempt private corporations dealing in good works. But they would do good
according to their own lights, and they would intervene in public life with no accountability
to the public required.
From the start, the mega-foundations provoked hostility across the political spectrum. To
their many detractors, they looked like centers of plutocratic power that threatened
democratic governance. Setting up do-good corporations, critics said, was merely a ploy to
secure the wealth and clean up the reputations of business moguls who amassed fortunes
during the Gilded Age. Consider the reaction to John D. Rockefellers initial request for a
charter from the U.S. Senate (he eventually received one from New York State):
In spite of his close ties to big business, Progressive presidential candidate Theodore
Roosevelt opposed the effort, claiming that no amount of charity in spending such fortunes
[as Rockefellers] can compensate in any way for the misconduct in acquiring them. The
conservative Republican candidate, William Howard Taft denounced the effort as a bill to
incorporate Mr. Rockefeller. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of
Labor, sneered that the one thing that the world would gratefully accept from Mr.
Rockefeller now would be the establishment of a great endowment of research and education
to help other people see in time how they can keep from being like him.*

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*Peter Dobkin Hall, A Historical Overview of Philanthropy, Voluntary Associations, and
Nonprofit Organizations in the United States, 16002000, in The Nonprofit Sector: A
Research Handbook, Yale University Press, 2006, 47.
The social policy ideas of the new foundations were shaped by their understanding of modern
research-based medicine, especially germ theory. Scientists aimed not simply to alleviate
symptoms but to discover the nature of a disease, isolate the pathogen, then develop and
administer a cure. Private philanthropies planned to do the same for such social ills as poverty
and illiteracy: sponsor research on a problem, finance the design of a remedy, and pay for
implementation (sometimes with the addition of public funds). The foundation trustees
seemed unaware that social problems are too multifaceted, too historically rooted, and too
entangled in politics and the economy to conform to the medical model. Of course, the new
general-purpose foundations didnt focus exclusively on social issues. They funded the
hard sciences, projects in international relations, and more. But rooting out social problems
was one priority.
One hundred years later, big philanthropy still aims to solve the worlds problemswith
foundation trustees deciding what is a problem and how to fix it. They may act with good
intentions, but they define good. The arrangement remains thoroughly plutocratic: it is the
exercise of wealth-derived power in the public sphere with minimal democratic controls and
civic obligations. Controls and obligations include filing an annual IRS form and (since 1969)
paying an annual excise tax of up to 2 percent on net investment income. There are
regulations against self-dealing, lobbying (although educating lawmakers is legal), and
supporting candidates for public office. In reality, the limits on political activity barely
function now: loopholes, indirect support for groups that do political work, and scant
resources for regulators have crippled oversight.
Because they are mostly free to do what they want, mega-foundations threaten democratic
governance and civil society (defined as the associational life of people outside the market
and independent of the state). When a foundation project failswhen, say, high-yield seeds
end up forcing farmers off the land or privately operated charter schools displace and then
underperform traditional public schoolsthe subjects of the experiment suffer, as does the
general public. Yet the do-gooders can simply move on to their next project. Without
countervailing forces, wealth in capitalist societies already translates into political power; big
philanthropy reinforces this tendency.
Although this plutocratic sector is privately governed, it is publicly subsidized. Private
foundations fall into the IRSs wide-open category of tax-exempt organizations, which
includes charitable, educational, religious, scientific, literary, and other groups. When the
creator of a mega-foundation says, I can do what I want because its my money, he or she is
wrong. A substantial portion of the wealth35 percent or more, depending on tax rateshas
been diverted from the public treasury, where voters would have determined its use.
The main rationale for both the tax exemption and the charitable contribution tax deduction
(created in 1917) is to stimulate private giving. Yet this is a weak rationale when applied to
the super-rich; a more effective way to stimulate their giving would be to raise the estate and
capital gains taxes. It is a meaningless rationale for the 65 percent of American taxpayers who
dont itemize their deductions and therefore cant use the charity tax break.
Despite scores of studies, the relationship of charitable giving to tax incentives remains
unclear. Too many different factors determine giving: religiosity, innate altruism, family
tradition, social attitudes, community ties, alumni loyalty, fluctuations in income. But other
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patterns of giving are well known. Less than 10 percent of all charity in the United States
addresses basic human needs. The wealthiest donors devote an even tinier portion of their
giving to these needs. Most major donations go to universities and colleges, hospitals, and
cultural institutions, often for highly visible building projects carrying the donors name
(New York Times, September 6, 2007).
Another public subsidy to private foundations comes from the 5 percent minimum payout
requirement. To prevent private foundations from hoarding all their wealth, the 1969 tax
reform requires them to make grants annually that equal or exceed about 5 percent of their
endowments value. There is, however, a loophole. The payout includes all reasonable
foundation administrative expensesfrom salaries and trustee fees to travel, receptions,
office supplies, equipment, rent, and new headquarters. Only the cost of financially managing
the endowment is excluded. Thus an extravagant lifestyle can cost a wealthy foundation
nothing: any part of the 5 percent payout that a foundation doesnt spend on itself must go to
grants anyway.

Right now, big philanthropy in the United States is booming. Major sources of growth have
been the wealth generated by high-tech industries and the expanding global market. In
September 2013 there were sixty-seven private grant-making foundations with assets over $1
billion. The Rockefeller Foundation, once the wealthiest, now ranks fifteenth; the Carnegie
Corporation ranks twentieth (Foundation Center).
Mega-foundations are more powerful now than in the twentieth centurynot only because of
their greater number, but also because of the context in which they operate: dwindling
government resources for public goods and services, the drive to privatize what remains of
the public sector, an increased concentration of wealth in the top 1 percent, celebration of the
rich for nothing more than their accumulation of money, virtually unlimited private financing
of political campaigns, and the unenforced (perhaps unenforceable) separation of legal
educational activities from illegal lobbying and political campaigning. In this context, big
philanthropy has too much clout.
Without countervailing forces, wealth in capitalist societies already translates into political
power; big philanthropy reinforces this tendency.
In the twentieth century, public distrust and the occasional congressional investigation
encouraged big philanthropy to keep a lower profile. The foundations were generally cautious
about public policy partisanship, discreet about government ties, and shy of politics. (A
notorious exception was the Ford Foundations experiment in community control of schools
in New York Citys Ocean HillBrownsville neighborhood in 1968.) Todays context permits
a radically different style: publicity-seeking, programmatically aggressive, and pushing
against the remaining limits on political activity. The out-there mega-foundations are
usually those overseen by living donors, people who made enormous fortunes running
businesses in recent years. The mantras of twenty-first-century big philanthropy are strategic
giving, return on investment, grantee accountability, numerical data to verify results, social
entrepreneurship, and public-private partnership. This business-style philanthropy is often
called venture philanthropy or philanthocapitalism.
The roles of grantor and grantee have also changed. Once upon a time, the mega-foundations
established a goal and sought experts to do independent research on how to achieve it. Today
many donors and program officers have preconceived notions about social problems and
solutions. They fund researchers who are likely to design studies that will support their ideas.
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Instead of reviewing proposals from outside the foundation, they hire existing nonprofits or
set up new ones to implement projects theyve designed themselves. The mode of operation is
top-down; grantees serve their funders. Mega-foundations also devote substantial resources to
advocacyselling their ideas to the media, to government at every level, and to the public.
They also directly fund journalism and media programming in their fields of interest. All this
marks a cultural transformation of big philanthropy.
The power relationship between grantor and grantee has always been one-sided in favor of
the grantor. Sycophancy is built into the structure of philanthropy: grantees shape their work
to please their benefactors; they are perpetual supplicants for future funding. As a result,
foundation executives and trustees almost never receive critical feedback. They are treated
like royalty, which breeds hubristhe occupational disorder of philanthro-barons. By taking
over the roles of project originator and designer, by exercising top-down control over
implementation, todays mega-foundations increasingly stifle creativity and autonomy in
other organizations. This weakens civil society. Some mega-foundations even mobilize to
defeat grassroots opposition to their projects. When they do, their vast resources can easily
overwhelm local groups. This, too, weakens civil society.
To be clear, Im criticizing both the excessive influence of mega-foundations on public policy
and the fact that they are publicly subsidized. In a free society, the super-rich can spend their
money in any legal way they want, including endowing huge organizations to try out pet
theories and promote personal projects. But those organizations shouldnt be tax exempt. The
super-rich dont need billions of dollars in tax relief annually to exert their will in the public
sphere. They can, and most will, engage in the same activities without the government
handout. Although redistributing power more fairly throughout society will require campaign
finance reform and rigorous progressive taxation, theres no reason to continue to subsidize
big philanthropy.
According to the Foundation Center (in an email to the author), private grant-making
foundations in the United States numbered 73,764 in 2011. Most are small. In the last fiscal
year, only 1,293 of them (1.8 percent) had assets of $50 million or more. Small foundations
dont have the resources to mount massive social experiments, dominate the national debate
on issues, or suffocate citizen activity. They likely need tax-exempt status to survive. When
they fund modest-sized pilot projects and focus on under-resourced populations, when the
research is solid and a foundation collaborates with (rather than dictates to) participants,
theres a chance to discover innovative public policies. If a pilot project clearly succeeds,
democratically elected officials should decide whether or not to scale it up. If it fails, the
foundation should repair any damage. Mega-foundations could operate in this way, and some
do fund small-scale independent projects. But the size and culture of big philanthropy now
militate against this.
The Case of Public Education
For a dozen years, big philanthropy has been funding a massive crusade to remake public
education for low-income and minority children in the image of the private sector. If schools
were run like businesses competing in the marketso the argument goesthe achievement
gap that separates poor and minority students from middle-class and affluent students would
disappear. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and
the Walton Family Foundation have taken the lead, but other mega-foundations have joined
in to underwrite the self-proclaimed education reform movement. Some of them are the

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Laura and John Arnold, Anschutz, Annie E. Casey, Michael and Susan Dell, William and
Flora Hewlett, and Joyce foundations.
Each year big philanthropy channels about $1 billion to ed reform. This might look like a
drop in the bucket compared to the $525 billion or so that taxpayers spend on K12 education
annually. But discretionary spendingspending beyond what covers ordinary running costs
is where policy is shaped and changed. The mega-foundations use their grants as leverage:
they give money to grantees who agree to adopt the foundations pet policies. Resource-
starved states and school districts feel compelled to say yes to millions of dollars even when
many strings are attached or they consider the policies unwise. They are often in desperate
straits.
Most critiques of big philanthropys current role in public education focus on the poor quality
of the reforms and their negative effects on schoolingon who controls schools, how
classroom time is spent, how learning is measured, and how teachers and principals are
evaluated. The harsh criticism is justified. But to examine the effect of big philanthropys ed-
reform work on democracy and civil society requires a different focus. Have the voices of
stakeholdersstudents, their parents and families, educators, and citizens who support
public educationbeen strengthened or weakened? Has their involvement in public decision-
making increased or decreased? Has their grassroots activity been encouraged or stifled? Are
politicians more or less responsive to them? Is the press more or less free to inform them?
According to these measures, big philanthropys involvement has undoubtedly undermined
democracy and civil society.
The best way to show this is to describe how mega-foundations actually operate on the
ground and how the public has responded. What follows are reports on a surreptitious
campaign to generate support for a foundations teaching reforms, a project to create bogus
grassroots activity to increase the number of privately managed charter schools, the effort to
exert influence by making grant money contingent on a specific person remaining in a
specific public office, and the practice of paying the salaries of public officials hired to
implement ed reforms.
You Cant Fool All of the People All of the Time
The combination of aggressive style, controversial programs, and abundant money has led
some mega-foundations into the world of astroturfing. This is political activity designed to
appear unsolicited and rooted in a local community without actually being so. Well-financed
astroturfing suffocates authentic grassroots activity by defining an issue and occupying the
space for organizing. In addition, when astroturfers confront grassroots opposition, the
astroturfers have an overwhelming advantage because of their resources. Sometimes,
however, a backlash flares up when community members realize that paid outsiders are
behind a supposedly local campaign.
In 2009 the Gates Foundation funded the creation of a nonprofit organization to stir up
grassroots support for the foundations teacher effectiveness reforms. The reforms used
students scores on standardized tests to evaluate teachers and award bonuses, abolished
tenure, and ended seniority as a criterion for salary increases, layoffs, and transfers. Gates
paid a philanthropy service group called Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) $3.5
million to set up the new nonprofit. Its staff would target four sitesPittsburgh, Memphis,
Hillsborough County (Tampa, Florida), and a consortium of Los Angeles charter schools
where Gates was about to invest $335 million to try out its reforms. RPAs confidential

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proposal, which was leaked to the media in 2011, described a potential pitfall for Teaching
First (the nonprofits provisional name):
Another risk is that Teaching First will be characterized as a tool of the [Gates] Foundation
and/or motivated by a political agenda other than improving public education.One way
Teaching First can minimize the likelihood of being tagged as an outsider is to maintain a low
public profile and to ensure publicity and credit accrue to local partners whenever possible.
Renamed Communities for Teaching Excellence, the nonprofit was launched in 2010. It
survived for barely two years. Operating out of Los Angeles while trying to produce local
enthusiasm for controversial policies in Pittsburgh, Memphis, and Tampa didnt work. In
addition, there was growing competition: various philanthropies, including Gates, began
funding other nonprofits that sent paid staff around the country to start a variety of ed-reform
campaigns. These efforts were also astroturfing, but many had greater successin part
because they had multiple and less identifiable funders. Amy Wilkins, chair of the board of
directors of Communities for Teaching Excellence, summed up the problem for the Los
Angeles Times (October 19, 2012): Gates was such a big part of the funding. That made
some of the partners and other funders nervous. How do you look like an independent actor?
You have to show broad public support so youre not seen as a phony-baloney front for
Gates. People criticized the organization for that, and they didnt move closer to shaking that
label.
The leaked proposal for Teaching First/Communities for Teaching Excellence reads like a
how-to manual for big-budget astroturfing. Here are some of the tips:
[I]t may be important for local Teaching First staff to support and participate in campaigns
that only are tangentially related to the teacher effectiveness agenda in order to build trust
among allies.
Community-based organizations are much more likely to pick up the reform agenda and stick
with it if they can support staff through this work and if they are able to forego other sources
of funding.
With professional assistance from one or more communications firms, Teaching First will
commission public opinion research and focus groups to hone a set of core messages that can
be customized to each districts context.Teaching First should have a budget for billboards,
bus and newspaper ads, and other mass media communications.
The Parent Trigger Trap
In January 2010 California enacted the nations first parent trigger law. The law gives
parents control over the fate of their childrens public school if it persistently underperforms
or if they can be persuaded that it underperforms. When the parents (or guardians) of at
least half of a schools students sign a trigger petition, the signers can then choose to have the
school principal replaced, the entire staff replaced, the school replaced with a privately
operated charter, or the school shut down. The law was immediately controversial. The
process was bound to divide communities, and it was open to abuse and outside
manipulation. But most important, the law destroyed the democratic nature of public
education. This years parents dont have the right to close down a public school or give it
away to a private company any more than this years users of a public park can decide to
pave it over or name a private company to run it with tax dollars (see Diane Ravitch, Reign of
Error, 2013). Votersdirectly or through their elected officialsdecide on and pay for
public institutions in a democracy.

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Big philanthropys role in the trigger law began with Green Dot, a charter school company
with funding from Gates, Broad, Walton, Annenberg, Wasserman, and other foundations (for
a detailed account of events, see Gary Cohns excellent expos, Public Schools, Private
Agendas: Parent Revolution, at www.fryingpannews.org, April 2, 2013). Green Dot created
an organization called Parent Revolution to lobby for and then use the law. The Broad
Foundation was one of Parent Revolutions first financial backers in 2009. Once the law
passed, other foundations jumped in. Parent Revolution now operates nationally and has
received more than $14.8 million, most of it from mega-foundations. Walton has given $6.3
million (43 percent of the total). Other major funders are Gates ($1.6 million), Arnold ($1.5
million), Wasserman ($1.5 million), Broad ($1.45 million), and Emerson ($1.2 million).
Once the law passed, Parent Revolution didnt wait for actual parents to initiate the trigger
process; it hired canvassers to find a serviceable school. The choice was McKinley
Elementary in Compton, a city of about 97,000 (97 percent African American and Latino) in
Los Angeles County. Parent Revolution drafted the petition, which specified that a charter
company called Celerity Education Group would take over McKinley. Paid canvassers, along
with fifteen recruited parents, collected signatures and submitted the petition to district
headquarters in December 2010. Then the conflict erupted. Some signers maintained they
hadnt realized they were choosing the charter school option. Fifty or sixty parents rescinded
their signatures. Other parents and the district claimed the petition was invalid because Parent
Revolution had imposed not only the charter option, but a specific company. Each side
accused the other of harassment, including threatening undocumented residents with
deportation. After a court ruled that the petition was invalid, the parent trigger drive at
McKinley ended, leaving community members divided and bitter.
Parent Revolutions second effortat Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, eighty-
five miles northeast of Los Angeleswas equally disruptive. The town of more than 32,000
is about 78 percent Latino and African American. One in three residents lives below the
poverty line; the largest employer is the Adelanto school district. In 2011 Parent Revolution
hired a full-time organizer, rented a house for a campaign headquarters, and, according to
Gary Cohn, sent in experts to train and advise parents on everything from strategy on
dealing with the school board to writing letters to help in researching potential charter
schools.It even provided [campaign logo] T-shirts.
After a contentious process, 100 of the 466 parents who had signed the petition for a charter
takeover changed their minds and rescinded their signatures. The school board invalidated
another 200 signatures. With just 37 percent of parents remaining, the board voted
unanimously in March 2012 to reject the petition. Parent Revolution then paid to challenge
the board in court. In July a superior court judge ruled that the trigger law did not provide for
parents to rescind their signatures.
When petition signers gathered in mid-October 2012 to vote on which charter company
would take over the school, only fifty-three of them showed up. Two parents who opposed
Parent Revolution told Cohn why they felt aggrieved. Lori Yuan, mother of two students,
said, Weve known all along this wasnt a grassroots movement. Shelly Whitfield, mother
of five students, said, Theyre taking away all the teachers my kids have been around for
years. They took over our school, and I dont think its fair.
In April 2013 Parent Revolution blundered in Florida when it tried to pass off a pro-trigger
video it had produced as the product of a local organization called Sunshine Parents. News of
the chicanery broke shortly before the Republican-controlled state senate was to vote on a

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trigger law. Supporters had been confident of victory, but the video revelation helped to
change some minds. The bill failed, 20-20 (Miami Herald, April 30, 2013).
The Very Model of a Modern Major Trigger Law
According to a report by the National Conference of State Legislatures, parent trigger
legislation had been brought up in at least twenty-five states as of March 2013. In addition to
California, six states have enacted versions of it: Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Ohio (a pilot program in Columbus), and Texas. Much credit for this rapid
expansion goes to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the now notorious
organization of businesses, private foundations, and over two thousand conservative state
legislators. ALEC meets twice a year in closed sessions to draft model legislation on various
issues; state representatives can then introduce the bills in their legislatures. According to
ALECs website, Each year, close to 1,000 bills, based at least in part on ALEC Model
Legislation, are introduced in the states. Of these, an average of 20 percent become law.
Many of the controversial stand your ground self-defense laws, voter ID laws that suppress
minority voting, and parent trigger laws are based on ALEC models.
Despite its obviously political agenda, ALEC is a tax-exempt nonprofit. The Gates
Foundation gave the group a $376,635 grant in 2011 to educate and engage its members on
efficient state budget approaches to drive greater student outcomes, as well as educate them
on beneficial ways to recruit, retain, evaluate and compensate effective teaching based upon
merit and achievement. After several exposs of ALECs work prompted some corporate
members to resign, the Gates Foundation announced in 2012 that it would finish out its grant
to ALEC but not undertake future funding (Roll Call, April 9, 2012).
He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune
Philanthropies risk losing their tax-exempt status if they donate directly to candidates for
public office, so some foundations have tried other ways to ensure they have the people they
want in key posts.
The Los Angelesbased Broad Foundation stipulated in the contract for a $430,000 grant to
New Jerseys Board of Education that Governor Chris Christie remain in office. As the Star-
Ledger reported (December 13, 2012), the Newark-based Education Law Center had forced
the release of the contract through the states Open Public Records Act. For the centers
executive director, David Sciarra, It is a foundation driving public educational policy that
should be set by the Legislature. The Broad Foundations senior communications director
responded, [W]e consider the presence of strong leaders to be important when we hand over
our dollars.
The foundation sector will fight reform ferociouslyas it has in the past. When asked to
forgo some influence or contribute more in taxes, the altruistic impulse stalls.
The keep-Chris-Christie clause was not the first time a staffing prerequisite was discovered in
a grant contract with a public entity. In 2010 Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle
Rhee negotiated promises for $64.5 million in grants from the Broad, Walton, Robertson, and
Arnold foundations. Rhee planned to use part of the money to finance a proposed five-year,
21.6 percent increase in teachers base salary. In exchange she demanded that the union give
her more control over evaluating and firing teachers and allow bonus pay for teachers who
raised student test scores. In March 2010 the foundations sent separate letters to Rhee stating
that they reserved the right to withdraw their money if she left. They also required that the
teachers ratify the proposed contract (Washington Post, April 28, 2010). Critics challenged
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not only the heavy-handed intrusion into an acrimonious contract negotiation but also the
legality of the stipulation on Rhee: hadnt she negotiated a grant deal that served her own
employment interests? The teachers ratified the contract, but the extremely unpopular Rhee
resigned in October 2010 after Mayor Adrian Fenty, who had hired her, lost the Democratic
mayoral primary. By that time, much of the grant money had been spent, and the new schools
chancellor kept Rhees policies.
Private foundations have used another tactic to exert influence on the Los Angeles Unified
School District: they paid the salaries of more than a dozen senior staffers. According to the
Los Angeles Times (December 16, 2009), the privately financed public employees worked
on such ed-reform projects as new systems to evaluate teachers and collect immense amounts
of data on students. Much of the money came from the Wasserman Foundation ($4.4 million)
and the Walton Family Foundation ($1.2 million); Ford and Hewlett made smaller grants. The
Broad Foundation covered the $160,000 salary of Matt Hill to run the districts Public School
Choice program, which turned so-called low-performing and new schools over to private
operators. Hill had worked in Black & Deckers business development group before he went
through one of the Broad Foundations uncertified programs to train new education
administrators. A Times editorial on January 12, 2010 asked, sensibly, At what point do
financial gifts begin reshaping public decision-making to fit a private agenda?Even the
best-intentioned gifts have a way of shifting behavior. Educators and the public, not
individual philanthropists, should set the agenda for schools.
A Modest Proposal
Big philanthropy is overdue for reform. The goal should be to reduce its leverage in civil
society and public policymaking while increasing government revenue. Some possible
changes seem obvious: dont allow administrative expenses to count toward the 5 percent
minimum payout, increase the excise tax on net investment income, eliminate the tax
exemption for foundations with assets over a certain size, and replace the charity tax
deduction with a tax credit available to everyone (for example, all donors could subtract 15
percent of the total value of their charitable contributions from their tax bills). In addition,
strict IRS oversight of big philanthropyespecially all the educating that looks so much
like lobbying and campaigningis crucial.
Another reform would require private foundations to spend down their endowments over a
designated number of years. They would no longer exist in perpetuity. This idea has some
promise of success: the living donors of several mega-foundations, including Bill and
Melinda Gates, have already decided to spend down and are recruiting others to do the same.
The foundation sector will fight reform ferociouslyas it has in the past. When asked to
forgo some influence or contribute more in taxes, the altruistic impulse stalls. The foundation
sector acts like any other powerful interest group. The Obama administration, for example,
tried several times to lower the charitable deduction cap, but the foundation lobby battled
each effort successfully. Still, the reforms are sound, necessary, and worth pursuing.
Meanwhile, the public needs more critical, in-depth information. The mainstream media are,
for the most part, failing miserably in their watchdog duties. They give big philanthropy
excessive deference and little scrutiny. Public television and radio live on big philanthropys
largess. Collaborative programming with mega-foundations has undermined the credibility of
major for-profit news organizations as well as public media, especially on health and
education issues.

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Early twentieth-century skeptics were rightly suspicious of plutocrats deciding how to
improve the human condition and then paying to translate their notions into public policy.
Now its time for a new progressive eracomplete with muckrakers and trust-busters to cast
a critical eye on big philanthropy.

Joanne Barkan is a writer based in New York City and Truro, Massachusetts. Her other
articles on the education reform movement and big philanthropy can be found here.
An earlier version of this article appeared in Social Research: An International Quarterly of
the Social Sciences, Summer 2013.
A slightly modified version of this article appeared in the Fall 2013 print issue of Dissent
under the title Big Philanthropy vs. Democracy: The Plutocrats Go to School.

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