Rich people like philanthropy for a few reasons:
They get to look good
They get to decide where the money goes
No one questions how and why they ended up with all that money in the first place
So it makes sense that the ideology of wealth places so much emphasis on private donors for social goods like health care and education. It even extends to a prescriptive morality that encourages other, less wealthy, people to attempt to mitigate the systemic inequity of our society with frantic personal efforts of their own. Aka volunteerism.
This tells it like it is:
“Human beings should not have to depend upon a rich man’s whim for the right to life.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jan/27/philanthropy-enemy-of-justice
We’ll leave it to international development studies students to write essays about the problems that happen when donations come with strings attached. Or when politicians pose for a photo op without permission while failing to address the real problem.
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