@TheAmarican Really? Hmm. Mostly we hear what we want to hear and don't hear what we don't want to hear. Apart from that, yes to what you say except the blah, blah, blah bit. The thing is he is elucidating the mechanisms by which the rich exert influence, and the way they use philanthropy to hijack social change is NOT being articulated. The introduction of "philanthropy correspondents" is a good idea. And he is looking at what ordinary people can do to make a difference. What he says is true, most of us don't really know what's going on with our local politics.
Exactly. I have been complaining about the facade of philanthroy from the super wealthy and the bullshit about "leaning in". He explains it better than I can.
We Americans have been a bit brain washed with our Patriotism and Flags (I myself love my American Flag and love being patriotic) But it convinces us into thinking that because best, we have nothing more to learn, nothing to improve in our system. The classic fat and lazy argument. Thank you for your well spoken points. I think they are eye opening.
Absolutely brilliant. I just discovered Mr. G on a MSM news interview! He validates what I've been thinking for years. I wish we'd focus less on taxes and philanthropy and more on wages, benefits, and profit sharing. Good companies (always small) share profits with everyone down to the floor sweeper. How does donating an opera house in a big city help the employees in the regional manufacturing facilities? Pthuh on Bill Gates and Tom Sterrett and their ilk. And he's young! Like AOC! Love him.
Thank you Anand for spending so much of this talk focusing on solutions. I knew that you had great ideas and insights in you! I know its important to report on the problems but we also need to report on the solutions and help people engage in them together.
Thank you Anand, for truely sharpening the focus on this corporate take over of humanity. The endless struggle between rich and poor. The tragic flaw of a spiecies whose greed is so profound they foul their own nest with arrogant self entitlement and disregard for the future generations. I love it, the Goliath who thinks he is David. They are the slave trade, and the daily horrors committed on the global scale go way beyond any horror flick.
That was effin incredible to listen to. It's not news what he said, we all know it's happening but he can really tell a good story that peaks my interest.
These sorts of assessments take place every 50 years or so. Back in the '20s/'30s when there were similar levels of inequality and a movement began demanding that big business be accountable to the society. It was called "corporate social responsibility" and it was a re-examination of the role of business TO THE society. Business would not exist without a society yet it seems like the attitude of many of those who have benefited the most from this society regard it and its constituency as "disposable" and irrelevant to their lives. THIS IS WRONG. WE AS A SOCIETY NEED TO BEGIN ASKING HARD QUESTIONS LIKE: Is automating all jobs a good idea? Should we go there? If we do, what will happen to the people who have no jobs? WE ESPECIALLY NEED TO ASK WHAT GOOD IS OUR GOVERNMENT IF IT CANNOT WADE IN ON THESE QUESTIONS? Rutger Bregman's Realistic Utopia is a very good start for the conversation that needs to be had: "Why, when society makes business success possible, doesn't business take a more nurturing attitude towards the source of their success?" It is high time that this occurred.
My main issue with elite philanthropists is that their gifts aren't conditionless. They tend to make sure their donations promote or at least are in line with their ideology.
you are absolutely correct - I am a retired nurse practitioner and spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to navigate a ridiculously expensive, inaccessible and complex medical system that rewards administrators, hospitals, medical industry profiteers and insurance CEO's plus pharmaceutical industry with billions of dollars...it's cruel and exhausting. Especially if one is ill or doesn't have the resources to pay for what they need. Unnecessarily. The resistance to change to a single payer system with "how can we ever afford it", "government takeover" is total propaganda put out by marketing firms lobbying for those who are making the most profit off this horribly broken healthcare system.
Great video, watched it a couple of times now! I think Anand's diagnosis of the issue is broadly on the money, however a more pragmatic solution than "billionaires seeing the light and doing the right thing" is required. I just don't think humans are hardwired to act so contrary to their immediate/medium-term interests.
Anand has a point. People TRIED to create a meaningful movement to address a number of the issues that Anand raised here in the Occupy Wall Street movement. The problem was that it was not well thought out, and it didn't have the necessary links to and impact on politicians in order to influence the current American plutocracy in any meaningful way. We do need to take another shot at this, but think it out more thoroughly. One way or another, unless the plutocracy is addressed, the rich will keep serving the rich, and the rest of us will simply get what we get.
The history of philanthropy has been to manufacture consent for an idea. If one did not get tax breaks for this, then the citizens would be able to choose how the money gets spent. If they want to use after-tax dollars, that is a different ideological battle. We have been taught competition, what if we taught cooperation, that alone could change how business relates to labor. Adversarial relations creates division, where friendly, hospitable relations can create win-win solutions.
The Sacklers channelled MILLIONS of dollars into foundations for the arts, and building museums and galleries, to disguise the fact that their company, Perdue Pharmaceuticals, was reaping BILLIONS of dollars in profits from the opioid market. While glossy magazines were printing obsequious articles praising the Sackler's generosity and philanthropy, and wealthy arts patrons were attending glittering charity functions (tax deductible, of course), thousands were dying, being incarcerated for drug-related offences and being bankrupted by medical bills. This is just one example. There are many others. These elite parasites have learned to use philanthropy and charitable foundations as just another way to camouflage their tax-dodging and salve their conscience.
I'm enjoying your conversation. You are my new voice. I think you listen to my thoughts and you are the perfect person to put it out there. I would use a lot of F-bomb. so thank you do not forget to tell these rich people that's their riches came from the poorest of people.
I agree everything! However, the hard truth is that so many people are normalizing the misdeeds and don't interested in understand the whole truth! So many people are not equipped to act the ways of protecting their rights and interests!
Love his thought provoking talks but also like hearing him speak because he's quite funny. On the other hand, I can barely understand what the host is rambling about. A lot of words that don't say much.
...and Google killed an already weak uber consolidated media. The mantra of ever bigger business with perpetual top & bottom line growth underlies this collapse.
@39:04 The crux of this discussion..."We (only) recognise tyranny when it comes in the shape of King George. And we are totally blind to the tyranny of collective systems."
Unions are sometimes the solution but most often the problem because they tend to protect who's already employed against new entries, who can't compete with lower skills and lower wage requirements.
I would love to help the hungry and homeless... if they wouldn't become a time spending wasting burden after that, If you do a thing "they" think you must do it all the time after... My workers ask me to solve a problem they have, I unwittingly agree and get involved, and NOW all family issues and problems get passed through me, the ones that they FEEL are too complicated or big for them to decide or solve by themselves; now if I refuse to get into it they take offence, and work suffers from them and ME..... it becomes a BURDEN, this is why I think giving to a charity and anonymously is what most people do.
exactly, they took the land and now people who were once land owners are tenants on their own property. but under the guise of help. "Hi I'm from ______ Corporation. I'm here to help."
Bill Gates didn't do anything bad to Africa you jackasses. He's one of the legitimately good billionaires that's striving for real change. He's literally been giving all of his personal wealth away and has gone on record saying billionaires should not exist.
Piketty was SHOCKED to discover that capital is more productive than unskilled labor!! Surprise Tom, capital has ALWAYS been more productive than unskilled labor!
Wealth is taken, not earned. No human life is long enough to earn great wealth. It can only be stolen from the vulnerable. Paying back a tiny fraction of that stolen wealth is meaningless.
My country's (Malaysian) new government just recently tried to introduce legislation to prevent child marriage. Here when some children/teenagers are raped (statutory rape, etc) to escape punishment all the rapists have to do is marry the victim. THEN I googled and discovered half the states in the US also don't. We are even better at providing legislation where women are given 3 months maternity leave unlike the US (even European countries do have). We even have almost free access to basic medical care in government hospitals/clinics with a payment of USD0.25, and specialists USD1.25.
Ya, I really like Yang (but also Cory Booker); and get upset when people dismiss him as a 1 topic/issue candidate ... cause then that would basically make all the others zero topic candidates. Would like to see Yang and Booker as Pres / Vice.
Love his understanding of working people grievances but his solutions are libertarian leaning and alleviating the symptom not the root in some cases and in others exacerbating the problem.
Interestingly if the rich western world applied the same understanding of what famine is in the same way that traditional pastoralist communities in places like the Sahel do, every single rich western nation would be officially suffering from widespread famine. Also every famine that has led to widespread death has occurred while these countries have had excess food locked away in warehouses that the population could not afford to buy, because of the international food prices.
Hah! My rich relatives publish newsletters showing themselves that one time they volunteered a few hours with Habitat for Humanity. Or posing next to a handful of 3rd World moms they helped out in some way. Nice look, and then they go home to their millions, while a billion other people literally starve on filthy streets.
The problem with our country is that people actually do feel that the issue of monopoly is "boring." Cretins who can't see the king that holds them down. Be aware of monopoly and be an advocate AGAINST monopoly. Don't be bored. Grow up. Fight monopoly everywhere.
This whole we NEED billionaires to encourage development is antithetical to how we know humans operate. As long as there is at least some profit (even miniscule) somebody will create it or do it. As long as it is worth the challenge, smart people will do it for practically nothing.
We have 'minimum wage' that assists people who are battling the injustice of poverty, yet, there's no 'maximum wage' to battle the injustice of hoarding. Without the infrastructure designed and built by the bottom half of society, the top 1% would have no infrastructure to move their goods to market. How is it that the bottom half get so little of the proceeds from their labour? Capitalism has become a method for business to gather more & more bullying power to force, or manipulate a system of gathering more power to bully the economic system. "Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority:" John Dalberg Acton, 1887
THE TRUTH OF BERNIE SANDERS SINGLE-PAYER IS THAT IT COVERS EVERYONE THE SAME AND ALL HEALTHCARE NEEDS, IF YOU MAKE $60,000.00 A YEAR THE FIRST $29,000.00 IS EXEMPT SO 4% OF THE 31,000.00 THAT IS LEFT= $1,200.00 A YR. HEALTHCARE AS A HUMAN RIGHT! 4% changes in higher bracket Plans Are Public!! NOT THE NIGHTMARE WE HAVE NOW WHERE YOU PAY A TAX EVERY TIME YOU PAY PREMIUMS & COPAY OR OUT OF UNION CHECK (which your Income cant change with Sanders M4A because the Employer ALSO does Not Have The High Cost) AND YET CAN STILL HEAR "NO,!" From Insurance Company "WE DONT COVER THAT!" FOR $8-12,000.00 A YR. AND THOUSANDS OF COMPANIES....NOT JUST ONE!
This is EXACTLY why Michael Dell saying that he doesn't want higher taxes because "his foundation does charity that he believes in." The fact is the changes that would improve society and make opportunity available to everybody ARE ANATHEMA to the alleged "elite" in the United States. Those who have anointed themselves "elite" do not want to actually prove that they are better, smarter, stronger, more creative, more benevolent etc. than those that they view as beneath them. This is especially true of trust fund babies who are wealthy by default. We have people running the country who appear to believe that everybody outside their social circle are inferior, unworthy and only useful as consumers, but unworthy for purposes of social support. The fact is: many of the great inventions of the last century came from people who actually worked in the industries for which they invented labor saving devices. The wringer washer was invented by a slave woman. The cotton gin was invented by a woman. The automatic transmission came from a black engineer and on, and on, and on. Creativity arises from need. Needs are often felt by those doing the work more quickly than their CEOs. We need to accept that and begin to invest in the education, housing and feeding of our middle and lower classes. We will all benefit including the very wealthy. In the United States, we need to begin looking at other countries' solutions. Norway beats our pants off academically. Let's look at their schooling system: what and how they're teaching.
Really? The people that created this website are billionaires. The person that invented the computer you are using is a billionaire. Billionaires are a byproduct of living in a world where you have access to all of these things. You don't want to live in a world where that isn't the case.
You will always have rich people, always, no escaping that fact, if it isn't business men then it will be emperors and dictators, you have to choose who will be the billionaire, someone has to be rich. North pole south pole, hierarchy is going to exist no matter what, people at the bottom and people at the top, new system means new rich people always. each system has it's elites. show some gratitude for the wealth you enjoy.
@@hdaviator9181 nice try at deflection. The one does not require the other. How sad for you that you demonstrated the very kind of attitude that girarharadas is talking about. I would add that Every Billionaire is a Predator - because they _became_ a billionaire by _stealing_ the value that their workforce contributed to _create_ all of that wealth. Billionaires are, more than anything, Wage Theft.
Simply inspirational. I Just hope this triggers many people. I have also thought about this concept of hailing these scammers who have hoarded wealth from the rest of us as saviours when indeed they aare the opposite.
How are they hoarding money from you when the government prints money on a constant basis? Just because someone makes a million dollars, does not mean you can't. Money is not a limited resource like oil or gold.
His approach is interesting. The audience ain't the working class. He is trying to pierce the bubble , not poping it , and replace the old air with fresh one. Thought, i am very skectical on his bet, he has somme special tact!
There has seldom been a better example of Billionaires protecting their own( through major media)....than the candidacy of Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. Yet as a child during the 70s I remember a country that was so envied for their generosity. Now even giving to your Church seems sacrilegious because the Churchs message has become intertwined with the political religion of Greed.
It also allows policies like education policy to be unjustly controlled by oligarchs while being viewed as humanitarian even though had it been government provided the education policies would be superior and have less pro-billionaire propoganda like rand in the curriculum See Koch brothers or Bill Gates for a more successful
He’s right about the complexities in Obamacare. Which is caused by the insurance industry’s takeover of the program, and cloaking the program’s language in jargon that only someone skilled in the insurance industry language can understand it. Of course, the language is also designed to help the insurance companies to squeeze as many profits out of the program that they possibly can, without tipping ppl off to the facts, they, the insurance companies are the one’s who controls all aspects of the program , not Social Security or Medicare!
He has a way of giving voice to impressions, misgivings and discomfort that I suspect a lot of us have with prevailing narratives given by our politicians and Titans of industry.
I can't believe that so many people are still trying to immigrate to the USA. That anyone but millionaires wants to live there. I live in a rather poor Eastern European country (within the EU). I earn 1000 USD per month. So does my girlfriend, and we live extremely well. No debt. Both of us have Master's degrees that we didn't pay a dime for. We have state-sponsored health insurance, which isn't great but we never have to worry about it. Our biggest bill is the 400 USD rent every month. We aren't able to buy a house yet (maybe in our fifties lol) so we're renting. We take 1- or 2-week vacations abroad 3 times a year. We can easily afford theatre, opera, movies, books, clothes. And we're actually poorer than most of our friends.
The moderator and the guest brought not only a lot of consonants, but also a lot of provocative ideas. If the system worked, we wouldn't need philanthropy. The most important quality of a leader is also the most undervalued and most neglected: the ability to inspire others to lead. It's not just enabling others to act, but enabling them to become leaders in their own right. Invariably, leaders want to stay in the forefront and simply cannot step aside and pass the baton. In science they say, progress is made one funeral at a time. We have to wait for some elite Stanford prof to pass away at the age of 90 before we can charter new perspectives. Dido in the real of political economy. Show me a system that overcomes this deficiency in human nature, and I will show you a system that will go viral. What we need is a "winner gives all" reframe.
Debra Legorreta “If the system worked, we wouldn’t need philanthropy”. Very well put. That’s the basic premise here. Anand then explains how the elites perpetuate that disfunction.
I agree and luckily even the dullest amongst us are figuring it out. When the baby boomers investment accounts get decimated that will be the last straw. The largest voting group in their elder years will have something to say at the polls. The debt-saddled kids will also vote in higher numbers. But how? Will they vote socialist with the boomers or conservative with the Austrian thinkers? One must be nimble today and prepared to be mobile.
Well let's see in many countries the number of people living in POVERTY the daily day in struggle to put food on the table having a decent roof over their backs the level of corruption the income inequality wealth inequality poor access to hospitals when it is needed WHAT IN HEAVENS NAME IS GOING ON CAPITALISM NOT delivering what their followers have been preaching for a long time
You are right, Anand. How could those US companies getting rich in those Central American countries. work to get those governments to create a more fair life for their own people and get rid of the crime and corruption. This way it would make people want to remain instead of having to run away to another strange land and be victimized again.
Right! Because critical thinking skills have been taken out of the school system! Now kids study to the test instead of being trained to think critically. And on top of that, we've got a cultural movement conflating "negative thinking" with critical thinking. We penalize people if they're not positive about everything all the time. And that of course deflates critical discussion.
Is the dynamic tyranny from authority versus tyranny from the collective? I don't think "collective" is an accurate discriptor for the chaos that comes from rampant individualism. A collective would be individuals banding together to improve conditions for all. Rugged individualism would be each person, or families at best, for themselves. Anarchism tends to collectivism and is not synonymous with lawless chaos. I'm not an anarchist myself, but I think the distinctions above are important.
Anand Giridharadas, I agree with much of what you have said. I have actually passed legislation three times with NO money when I was younger. I was startled by what I found in the process. What is needed NOW is a return to Civics training that doesn't just cover how legislation is made, but what the role of lobbyists has been, understanding civil, state and federal budgets. There is actually a book on this topic on Amazon. People need to understand budgets more than anything AND HOW CERTAIN CHANGES THAT WERE MADE BY SOME OF THE LAST 5 PRESIDENTS have negatively impacted the independence of our government.
no way, be immersed and assailed and threatened by the toxic cesspool of grifters, grafters, interest-conflicted influence-peddlers, crony-corpiratist neofeudalists and just plain hard-core assholes-on-the-take ??
In the 1990s Non-profits became "Non-governmental Organizations" and that was no accident. In some ways that's a good thing to not be government run but in all too many cases there is no oversight.
