SPEAKER_02 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Rodri Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, as ever, Rodri Davis. And although we haven't actually had any longer of a break than we normally do between episodes, it's just been two weeks. And some great conversations lined up. So lots to look forward to as we move into the summer. And this week's episode is an absolute cracker, I think. It is an interview with Amy Schiller about her book that came out earlier this year, certainly in the UK, possibly towards the back end of last year in the US. And the book is called The Price of Humanity, How Philanthropy Went Wrong and How to Fix It. And I really, really enjoyed this book. I mean, I I will say I read loads and loads of books about philanthropy, many of them I enjoy, but a lot of the time they probably fit within my kind of existing understanding because I do spend all of my time thinking about this stuff, so I very rarely get that surprised. I sometimes learn some new historical details and that kind of thing, but I'm pretty well aware of the sort of broad arguments and themes about philanthropy, so often there's a healthy dose of confirmation. And one of the things I really enjoyed about Amy's book was even though I kind of agreed with large parts of it, I found that it did challenge my thinking quite a bit and posed questions or addressed issues in ways that were slightly more counterintuitive and sort of challenged me to think a bit differently and in some cases kind of clarified my own feelings about certain issues around the role of philanthropy and the interplay between philanthropy and justice. So it was absolutely great to have a chance to sit down with Amy back in February, I think it was, um, to talk to her about the book, how it came about, um, what her aims were in it, and some of the substance uh in inside it. Um we had a great wide-ranging conversation, so we obviously talked um about the book and sort of what it was that drove her to write it in the first place. We talked quite a lot about one of the sort of central ideas in the book, that which is essentially that we need to refocus on the value of human existence and move away from slightly more kind of technocratic um models of philanthropy that focus solely on the things that are measurable, um, and even uh solely on the idea of kind of immediate acute needs around poverty, and think you know more broadly about what it is that makes life not just possible but worth living, and think about the role of philanthropy in funding what Amy talks about in the book in terms of sort of magnificence, so that might often uh be found in the in the shape of sort of public spaces or kind of um buildings or institutions that bring a sense of wonder or sort of transcendent experience to to a wide range of people. Um, so we talked about that. We also talked about whether that was a kind of idealistic view of the role of philanthropy, in you know, given that the sort of the reality right now is that there are acute needs and that currently not enough of those needs are being met through taxation and sort of redistributive um public spending, and so whether essentially her vision of philanthropy is something that kind of comes after that, uh or whether we can think about changing the way in which we think about philanthropy at the same time as also sort of driving for some of the those changes that are required in terms of the taxation of wealth and the focus on on justice as well. Um we talked uh about some of the sort of specific things that she focuses on in the book as well. Uh, for example, uh a really interesting take on the reaction to the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral a few years back and the philanthropic response to that, which Amy argues in a way became slightly wrong-headed, and actually that the sort of focus on criticizing that response on the grounds of you know people responding to uh an iconic building when they weren't similarly driven to respond to immediate human needs was pitched as something that sort of showed the flaws in philanthropy, but actually, you know, she kind of argues that maybe the other way, the assumption that you know you know people who don't have large amounts of money have nothing to gain from beautiful buildings and heritage is actually sort of a weird form of inverse snobbery. Um so it's a really interesting argument there. Um, we talked quite a bit about effective altruism, which is something that kind of crops up throughout the book. Um, you know, Amy I think engages with it on kind of you know valid terms but is relatively critical of EA on sort of various grounds. So we talked a bit about that. Um and we talked about the uh the interplay between philanthropy and taxation and justice, which as I sort of mentioned before is a key part of Amy's argument because you know she's sort of saying that actually you know we need to work out how we ensure that the the state plays its uh appropriate role in ensuring that people's basic needs are being met um through systems of taxation that are kind of fair and just, and then we can understand the role of philanthropy as something that sort of adds other things on top of that or is able to focus elsewhere. We also talked um about her take on Mackenzie Scott, which again I think is uh really interesting, and also about her take on Andrew Carnegie, which is an interesting one in the book because she sort of counterintuitively um suggests that maybe there's a sense in which you know we can understand Carnegie's philanthropy as a an example of how of philanthropy at its at its best in terms of funding um public information through libraries, um, and actually seeing Mackenzie Scott as as very, very you know worthwhile in her own right, but actually her mode of wealth creation reflecting the privatization of knowledge through uh a company like Amazon and so actually kind of comparing and contrasting those two things. Um then we talked a bit more broadly about kind of the value of taking a historical view of philanthropy and some of the challenges and the opportunities of trying to make these debates about philanthropy accessible to a general audience. Um, so without further ado, let's go into the conversation. Um, I really, really enjoyed this one, so I'm hoping uh that you certainly will too. Um, and then I will be back at the end of the episode for the usual bit of housekeeping. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Amy Schiller. Hi there, Amy.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Hey Rod, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Oh, no problem at all. It's a real pleasure to have a chance to talk to you on the podcast. So, yeah, the reason that I invited you on is that you have a book out at the moment. It's called The Price of Humanity, How Philanthropy Went Wrong and How to Fix It, which I read recently and really, really enjoyed. There's absolutely loads of stuff in there that sort of confirmed things that I already thought, challenged some other things I thought, but all of it was very much in kind of areas of interest to me. So maybe the best place to start is just for you to tell people a bit about kind of what the book is about, what the core arguments are and what it was that led you to write it.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Absolutely. Uh the core of the book is that philanthropy means love of humanity, and I take that as a mandate or an opportunity to think more thoroughly about what it is we mean by humanity, and maybe what it even means we mean by what it is to love humanity. Um, and I think that is especially relevant as we look at a world that seems to be almost sort of erasing um the unique value of the human, um, sort of the rise of um of AI and of um sort of technocracy. Um I felt this need to kind of um reclaim philanthropy almost for humanism, for a very expansive understanding of what makes us human is not just our existence, our species survival, our productive capacity, um, but our imaginative, our collaborative, our creative capacities, our abilities to flourish and to flourish together. So I wanted to think about philanthropy as something that could affirm that definition of humanity rather than sort of collapsing into these rising frameworks that were very, to my mind, dehumanizing. And why did I write this book, you ask? Um, I saw this happening in maybe this is now 15 years ago, um, but in the early stage of my career, I was working in major gift fundraising consulting, which I've continued to do throughout throughout my career, and I noticed the language changing from donors about why they were making the giving decisions they were, that it was no longer as rooted as it had been in a sense of reciprocity or obligation connection to some various community of identity, um, but rather it was really about this very detached analytical perspective of wanting to get the best return on their investment, something I'm sure you're very familiar with. And that intrigued, and I would even go so far as to say it concerned me, um, because I had this, I had this hope that philanthropy was a way of correcting or kind of a bulwark against flattening the whole world into just a kind of transaction, like an economic transaction and calculation. And I wanted to think more deeply about it, which I did in graduate school, and I got my doctorate, and then I wrote this book to sort of present that new way of, maybe not new, but that um to me important way of thinking that seemed um to be a needed corrective to the way things were, the way the norms were changing without us even quite realizing or naming it.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Yeah, absolutely. And there's loads to pick up on there and not so once to talk about. And and one thing you mentioned there is that sort of shift towards the idea of a gift, as it maybe has kind of historically been understood, towards in various different ways, seeing it as a transaction, either one that's literally a kind of transaction in that we're purchasing products and being told that they're doing good, or the idea of giving as an investment and that you're sort of purchasing some social good. What is it for you that kind of goes wrong in that shift? And what is it about a gift that has unique value as opposed to a transaction?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Uh the a transaction implies that you you will receive a concrete return. There's a kind of exchange. Um, it does not release that expectation the way that a gift does. A gift says, um, this is sort of freely given in it in to encourage or to enable some outcome that I may or may not see or control. Um so the flattening of everything means that it has to somehow prove its value to the purchaser or the investor rather than having its own inherent value in the world that is being honored or acknowledged by the gift. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

No, I mean it does absolutely. Um and I guess it in that sense of reciprocity, I mean, there's something about the direct reciprocity that you get in a transaction versus the kind of generalized sense with a gift that you might get something back, but you don't know when and if and where, and that's sort of fundamentally quite different.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yes, you don't have that guarantee. You don't have the the promise or the confirmation, um, and you don't really have the the expectation to demand it.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah, absolutely. And sort of one of the things you mentioned there as well is about you know a real theme at the core of the book is uh essentially about the value of what it is to be human. And I guess there's a few things about I mean the first one is is a question of just about talking in those terms. I mean, I love that stuff because it really sort of speaks to me about the way in which I increasingly kind of think about philanthropy, and I think it helps to challenge some of the received wisdom. But it can be quite difficult, I find, in rooms of people who work in philanthropy where a lot of the language is quite sort of technocratic and jargonistic. Do you do you think that is a challenge? And actually, is that part of the rationale behind the book to sort of challenge the fact that we've fallen into talking in these these very kind of cold ways about something that that should be more human?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yes, I I concur with that absolutely. That the I think much of this issue is that these are norms that are shifting at the level of um all levels of sort of elite power. And so philanthropy is very often responsive to those or symptomatic of those. Like we are, you know, trying to sort of meet potential donors where they are and persuade them, as you as you would do in my sort of former primary line of work and major gift fundraising, and sort of speak to them in ways that will persuade them to make the maximum gift. And so if they can only can really understand uh a case for giving in these analytical clinical terms, then you kind of pragmatically have to go with that. Um, and so the the life world becomes sort of transformed because the uh the sort of immediate, urgent, you know, mandate to raise money or to you know mobilize resources sort of requires that you adapt to these norms. So the helpful thing that I thought I could contribute was to say, hey, even you know, perhaps this is conscious, perhaps it's not conscious, um, but somebody who is just slightly, because I was sort of based in the academy and in the world of journalism, I could step outside and simply reflect back and say, here is how these language how this language is changing and what the broader ramifications are outside of the kind of day-to-day challenges of um the necessity of raising the money. It says, well, here are the sort of long-term unintended consequences of reinforcing those norms. Um and some and and that it doesn't have to be that way. I think that was the other important thing, which is to say there's a reason it says how philanthropy went wrong and how to fix it in the subtitle. Um, I wanted to offer not just a critique, there's plenty of critique, most of it entirely valid out there. I wanted to say there's a redemption possible and to give examples of those. Um, and I did that primarily through storytelling, through the examples of Jane Addams and LeBron James, but also of his other campaigns, um, stories about how philanthropy made possible the Statue of Liberties installation in the United States, stories of how it makes possible things like community gardens and public spaces on a smaller scale, ways of kind of reclaiming those frameworks because it feels like they've so receded. Um I wanted to give some kind of um some kind of backup um for those who wanted to sort of advocate for a more um humanistic approach and who are probably under a great deal of pressure um to uh shy away from from that sort of advocacy.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yeah, absolutely. And and one of the things I found fascinating about the book is it really gets to the heart of what the the implications of that that are. I think, and kind of one of the points it makes is that a lot of when we think about the role of philanthropy, we talk about human existence rather than human flourishing. And so it kind of focuses on what what are the things philanthropy needs to do to make human life possible rather than what is it that kind of in enriches it. You kind of challenge that in a way and sort of say, well, actually, you know, that's not necessarily the right way to think about the role of of philanthropy, and that discounting all of these things that make life worth living, you know, and focusing solely on those things that make it possible maybe gets the balance wrong. Well, I wonder, there's a there's a lot I want to pick up on that because I think it's such a fascinating line of thinking. I guess the first thing, because I I'm very sympathetic with it, my immediate thought is that the pushback on it would be somebody saying, but you know, you can't do the bit where you get to do the flourishing and the focusing on what makes life worth living until you've kind of met the minimum, you know, necessary conditions for life to be possible. So, in terms of kind of the reality of philanthropy now, what does that mean for your argument? You know, does philanthropy need to focus on the essential stuff first and then get on to the you know the nice to have, or or is it more complicated than that?

SPEAKER_00 17:39

It is m multi-layered. So I think part of the issue it because that pushback is something I hear frequently and it's entirely valid. Um, and I think it comes from a feeling that uh we can only do one thing at a time. And I also really understand where that comes from because I think um what a lot of philanthropy that focuses on sort of ensuring survival is doing is responding to crises. And we are in a polycrisis. There are many crises that need attention, and so I think that generates a sense of urgency, and that is further, I think, amplified by rhetoric that's very absolutist in its approach. So there's the entirely valid sort of realities that that philanthropy is responding to, and then you have um these sort of paradigms from, for example, the effective altruists who really run with that uh sense of we are in a struggle for survival, and say that's the only thing that we can focus on ethically. That's the only thing that philanthropy um should be attempting to rectify is extension of you know quality-adjusted life years or you know, productive working human life. So um the my first um layer was sort of saying, I simply want to reject the absolutism. Um and I want to say that there can be multiple courses forward. Um the next thing I would say is acknowledging that there are crises that um need responses and that those will take time. So I'm not, I don't mean to imply that somehow today we should shift all of our funding to parks and museums and culture and simply abandon um our response to crises. I want to say, um, again, if we reject the absolutism, that that's the only thing that matters, um, that does allow us to say, okay, how can philanthropy and how can all of the work that we do, it doesn't have to just mean that. It could mean our political work. How can we ensure that we are both giving for the world that we have and for the world that we want to build? That's also why I introduce this idea of separate spheres, that ideally there is money that we use to resolve crises or ideally prevent them, and that hopefully that comes mainly from public goods and from public spending to kind of um prevent or alleviate social emergencies. Then there can be a role for philanthropy that does the make life worth living projects, um, and that we can understand that as and judge philanthropy on those grounds of are we enabling philanthropy to perform that role rather than sort of shoving it into the sort of one sphere of everything must be responding to social crisis, social emergency, and ensuring survival. So, can we simply give ourselves a bit of breathing room and can we imagine a sort of more expansive trajectory for social progress in which philanthropy is sort of returned to its rightful place?

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, and and it struck me when I was reading that, it was it really sort of spoke to some of the, you know, kind of discussions that I've seen throughout history about the the kind of the role of philanthropy in relation to justice and the idea of duty as it relates, because it kind of struck me you've got maybe that bit of um you know justice demands, uh things as a you know, uh addressing some of these issues around inequality and poverty as a matter of duty, and maybe that's best done through the state, through taxation and spending. Maybe there's a bit of of duty on philanthropy above and beyond that to focus on those issues, but then surely there is a sort of supererogatory bit where you still have some philanthropy that is kind of free to focus on the other things, and and maybe the I wonder if in terms of that and with that picture works, how that what the implications are of that for your thinking about the role of taxation? Because obviously part of the problem, I guess, is people would say, Well, that's very nice and Theory, but at the moment that's not how things are. So what we need to focus on is getting more taxation on wealth and more public spending. So do you kind of have sympathy with the need to focus on that as well?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Absolutely. Uh so I do advocate for uh taxation overall, but in the interest of not making it a book about taxation, which I'm not ex specifically qualified to write, um, I uh the sort of broad strokes of my position are that like we must have greater taxation of wealth, greater guardrails on the accumulation of extreme wealth. Um, and there's some wonderful scholarship coming out about that um now. And uh, I mean there has been, but I I just recently saw another book that came out about um sort of wealth caps from a Dutch economist. I'll look it up and send it to you for show notes. So, yes, like broadly speaking, I'm in favor of wealth and kind of restricting the accumulation, uh restricting the accumulation of wealth and taxing it more, and using the tax revenue that we have to uh attend to social needs. I should be clear, I mean, you're in the UK, I'm in the US, uh, there's plenty of public money. I can speak to the US context, um, not nearly enough of it goes to social programs. Um, so there's a question also not just of amount of money, but also of priorities. What I could offer specific to philanthropy was: can the tax structures that we use to incentivize philanthropy be done in a way that doesn't further exacerbate inequality and doesn't further exacerbate this issue of inequality and uh uh inadequate attention and inadequate funding of social emergency? And can we do things that sort of reorient our political economy to make sure it's more equal, more people have economic security? Can the philanthropic incentives, for example, the tax deductions that we have, um, as well as the wages that we provide, kind of do more to help people at all levels of the economy not only be more economically secure and not be in a state of crisis, but perhaps be secure enough to become participants in charitable giving. So that's sort of the whole, this, the, the sum total of my approach to taxation. I'm absolutely in favor of it. And it is really, if we are to do things sequentially, it's really important that the project of rescuing philanthropy happen in tandem with a full-throated sort of political approach that is much more justice and equality oriented. Like that is the sort of ground upon which all of the other projects do rest. But I think they should and can happen concurrently.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah. And I guess in that context, I mean one thing I find fascinating is the the seemingly kind of growing number of philanthropists, you know, wealthy philanthropists who are combining the two by kind of getting involved in campaigns for wealth taxation but still doing philanthropy. And so they seem to be, you know, recognizing the need to square that circle.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah, I think there's a a real wisdom and understanding that philanthropy is far too downstream to be a solution to structural problems, um, that those can really, you know, it's a bit like a render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Like these are political problems that require political solutions. I don't think it's crazy to say that. Um, I think it is an appealing fantasy that somehow um philanthropy, um, which I think really happens kind of orbiting around or at the margins of justice claims, right? But that philanthropy is not a means of ensuring justice. Only sort of institutions um uh and policy can ensure justice on sort of stable grounds. I'm speaking in very you know getting very f you know philosophical with you this morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, no, it's good stuff. Um and and one of the things, um, just to sort of dig even more into that point about the um sort of seeing the role of philanthropy as focusing on the kind of the bare necessity of human existence rather than flourishing, one of the bits in the book I found really fascinating was where you kind of take that argument further and say, you know, it's it's not just that those who focus on the essentials have the moral high ground, which often seems the case, because if you're arguing, you know, we should be allowed to fund opera houses or cathedrals as opposed to you know uh treating starvation and hunger, it's it's quite difficult morally to hold that. But actually, you make the point that in focusing solely on the idea of existence, that can become quite paternalistic because you end up sort of othering poor people, you see them as different fundamentally from you know you or us as human beings and treating them as something that can sort of be solved as an issue rather than actually seeing the full scale of their humanity. And you make that point, I think, particularly in the context of effective altruism. So maybe you could sort of you know say a bit more about that, because I found that idea really fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

I love that framing, um, by the way. I just want to compliment you on that. Yes, I will get to uh I'll touch on the effective altruism in a moment, but I it as you were saying the question, I remembered this one quote that's in the chapter I wrote on Notre Dame, where uh this is really where that controversy erupted um in such a beautifully compressed way, of you know, uh in the book, and I this is from people I spoke to in France, the controversy of people versus stones. You know, should we be feeding and housing our population that is poor, or should we be building this cathedral? Um, how could you possibly, again, how could there be the moral high ground in saying the latter? And I remember the quote of the journalist who sort of sneered, after all, what do the poor know of the sublime? That that is really, you know, again, I I understood the rhetorical strategy, but that is the ultimate expression to me of like othering the poor. Like, well, these people couldn't possibly care about having beauty or sublimity or something meaningful in their lives. And of course, I understand that, you know, they're not, you know, living these dreamlike lives where they can sort of contemplate humanity, that there are they are under stress and crisis, but that sense of sort of stripping them of any potential to appreciate the full variety of human experience felt so troubling to me, especially because Notre Dame Cathedral itself is the product of poor and working class donations and efforts as a sort of statement that we, the Commune of Paris, can build something grand. We don't just uh have to have these gorgeous buildings on the estates of the aristocracy. So, yes, to me it felt really important to say we we should not just kind of reduce people to only their vulnerability and their need. And I do think that many frameworks that's effective altruism. I think to some extent that starts even earlier in frameworks that I identify with the Gates Foundation, the idea that, you know, it's really about lives that have equal value, uh, which to me implies you've calculated the value, uh, but I digress. Um, this idea that focusing on on survival is not only what matters to you, the donor, but that would be almost uh self-evident that that's what matters to the beneficiaries, that they might have no other priorities, that they might have no other concerns or needs. That that is in fact quite paternalistic and objectifying, I think, of others and dehumanizing, which is really the point that I made throughout the book.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

And and I guess it'll remind me of also the number of examples that there are increasingly of where people shift to things like giving direct cash gifts, how often those end up getting spent on things that very much don't match up with the expectations of the donors, which I mean, yes, people use them to meet basic needs, but they often spend them on things like, you know, funeral rites or others that are culturally important. And it's sort of yeah, actually giving people the chance to sort of say what is of value to them is uh is quite important, I think. Um and the other thing I wanted to ask there about is obviously um you also sort of touch on some of the historical angles that you took you talk quite a lot about um Andrew Carnegie in it, I thought, in a really interesting way. Um and it I want to come on in a moment to the uh comparison you draw between him and Mackenzie Scott, but I guess in relation to this point, one of the things you sort of say is that, you know, yes, he funded, you know, famously libraries and there were question marks about you know Carnegie's biggest business practices and the relationship between inequality and his philanthropy, but he definitely did plenty of public good. And in so doing, again, he didn't do it in that kind of deeply utilitarian way. He could have made much less nice libraries that served the same function, but there was a certain element of deliberately making them genuinely beautiful, nice places, and that was kind of common amongst quite a lot of the sort of philanthropy-funding public institutions of that time. And and you you mentioned in the book the notion, the sort of Aristotelian notion of magnificence, which I found fascinating. Maybe you could say a bit about kind of what what that idea is as a virtue.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yes. Um the very short version of my reading of magnificence is uh nothing's too good for everybody, right? And it's nothing is too good for everyone. So the same way you might say, oh, well, nothing's too good for my kids, right? Or nothing's too good for my family, would say, nothing's too good for everybody. Everyone deserves this um something really dazzling, something really grand. Um I wrote about uh Grand Central Station, uh, the train station in New York City, which is this public space, and um more specifically, this letter from a worker uh in I think 1927 who talks about how when she walks through this beautiful space every day, it really affirms her sense of dignity. It affirms her sense of grandeur, of belonging, of happiness, even as she's rushing to the subway, sort of from the grind of the workday to the sort of dark underground of the train, and there's this moment of awe and grandeur and sublimity in her life that she really saw and appreciated. Um, so that's that's what I think about when I think about magnificence. It doesn't have to be quite as large of a scale of that train station. It's just to say there's something very important about affirming human dignity, the right to beauty, um, that these are sort of reflections of how much we value every single person in our when in the design and the feel and the aesthetic of our common world. Um those are real, those are real reflections of valuing humanity to me. So that is where I drew upon this idea of magnificence. Um and tell me again with the first part of the question.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Uh I mean I think that was that was kind of it. I was just making the the point that um yeah, that the that that notion of magnificence um I think is is really helpful in trying to get at that that idea.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

I did want to say one thing, which is like, I think that philanthropy is unique as the form of money that can do that. And so when you asked me before why I wrote the book, this is I should have mentioned this, but that philanthropy does not have to obey the demands of the commercial marketplace to produce profit on a kind of consistent regular basis. It doesn't even have to obey the demands of government to be sort of prudent and sort of cost-effective with its public spending. It can afford the lavishness. It can afford not just financially, but almost ideologically, it can sort of afford the lavishness of the Carnegie Library to make a palace for the people. It can afford to uh create grandeur. I refer to the Cleveland Museum of Art and the idea that they built this museum for the benefit of all the people forever. And I think philanthropy is the only kind of money that has the freedom to operate on that with on that time scale, with such breadth, with such almost sort of romantic ambition. And that that is so important again to affirming all humanity and its value just in the kind of world that we all exist in collectively. So I want to make sure that we have that that ability protected, um, those sort of that sort of sanctuary protected against the kind of consuming and destructive forces of the market.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

And uh it's a really interesting idea because I guess it's you know it's easy to be quite critical of that aspect of philanthropy, and many people are, because that's the bit that to the outside looks um, I mean, it's almost sort of it can be self-serving and it can look as though it's just being done for a desire for social status or naming rights or recognition, or that it's essentially the you know, the wealthy kind of funding things that are of their own interest and therefore they get the benefit of them. So I guess uh what I'd be really interested to hear is you talk a lot in the book, a lot of the examples are around funding public spaces and public institutions, is is the crux of making the distinction between that bad form of philanthropy that is sort of self-indulgent and the good form where it's making the most of its ability to kind of fund things that have an element of magnificence, who gets to benefit from them. So we need to put a lot of emphasis on access and and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yes. Um I think there's two pieces to this. And one is that um it seems self-serving if it comes from a very small group of people. Um, so that sort of presumes, understandably, um, that it's only going to be like, you know, one magnate whose name is on everything. Um but that doesn't necessarily have to be how these things are created. Um there can be much more democratic forms of funding these, and that's why I write about the Statue of Liberty, um, which was installed via a crowdfunding campaign and donations from the poor and working class readers of Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, The World. So uh, and again, there's smaller scale versions of this as well, that you can have this sort of collective expression of valuing magnificence. It doesn't have to be this kind of monolith. And even the libraries are somewhat proof of that because as much as they are Carnegie's legacy, they are also a testament to the commitment of the communities in which they reside to sustain them and to maintain them. So there's, it doesn't necessarily have to be this kind of no bless oblige, you know, uh in in terms of how we create and sort of sustain those institutions. And in fact, perhaps we would all benefit from absorbing and internalizing that potential for ourselves as givers at all levels, that sort of we can reclaim and provide these what seem coded as aristocratic goods. We can sort of claim them and provide them as goods that are the rights of everyone.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Yeah, and I think I mean I think it's a really sort of yeah fascinating and kind of heartening uh idea. Um I just I'm aware that that I've got so many more things I want to ask you, we're gonna run out of time. Um I just wanted to circle back. We mentioned sort of in passing there the the bits where you focus on Carnegie and Mackenzie Scott, and I'd love to just pick into both of those a little bit and the comparison you draw between them. Um just taking Scott first, you obviously, you know, lots have been written at this point about Mackenzie Scott and the way in which he's giving and kind of how that challenges some of the norms in philanthropy. Um, and you know, for you, what is most interesting about what she's doing, is it the kind of the the pace at which she's doing it, the scale? It certainly challenges the idea, you know, that's very much there that it's difficult to give money away quickly. Um, you know, she seems to be doing that fine. Or is it kind of the way in which she's choosing to do it and what that says about what she values?

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Well, to me, the number one quality of Mackenzie Scott's giving is that her gifts are unrestricted. That to me is a lesson that all people can absorb for their own giving. Although, you know, not as many people are in a position to earmark their $10. But um, I just love the rejection that somehow, in order to be a good philanthropist, you have to have so closely designed and uh instructed people on how to best use your gifts. I think about many philanthropists that I've spoken to, one in particular, and in fact, this is from a friend, this is a friend of a friend anecdote, someone who said, Well, I want to give money to support this woman's shelter, but I don't just want it to go, I don't want it to go towards installing the elevator. And and I my friend told me this story, and I just blurted out, but the women are the elevator, right? The elevator is the women. It's all the same. There's this revulsion against somehow, like, oh, well, if I'm giving towards operations, um, then I'm just a chump, you know, or that doesn't make me feel as good. There's all kinds of sort of unspoken expectations of what kind of experience a donor is going to get from their giving that get kind of folded into those restrictions. Um, I want to feel good because I want to feel like I gave money to the women. And what Mackenzie Scott does by giving unrestricted is she just releases those expectations and says, like, free yourself, you know, you can, you can, both to her beneficiaries and perhaps to her fellow donors, some sort of like, let it go, you know, let go of those expectations of personal sort of satisfaction and control. So I think that's so, so important. Certainly the rate at which she's giving away money is very, very impressive. She's thinking so deeply, I think, about how how could she possibly be, you know, an ethical billionaire ultimately, it seems to be like her challenge. Um, and I think her answer is I'm trying to not be a billionaire. Um trying to just offload this money as quickly as I can. And what I where I think there's sort of room to watch and see what happens is in whether or not sort of offloading all of this money is being done in such a way that it actually redistributes power to the communities that she seems to want to empower. And I think that's the kind of irony at the center of the comparison with Carnegie is that he created these libraries which decommodified knowledge and they created these spaces where people could exist for free, and really that's a way of granting power to these communities, in my reading. Um, and so for me, the the question remains outstanding of whether or not Mackenzie Scott's gifts are actually going to build that same sense of power and security, a place uh of places or institutions that are more secure and make their beneficiaries more secure from the pressures of capitalism in the market.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Yeah, it's I thought that point was really interesting about the sort of, I mean, you know, fundamentally her money comes from Amazon, which as you point out is kind of the you know the poster child of commodifying books and and knowledge. And then obviously Carnegie's money was problematic in its own way, thanks to his business practices, but then what he chose to do with it had the opposite effect. So if we were sort of putting both of them on a scale and trying to weigh up with you know who who is the better quote unquote philanthropist at the end of the day, it's actually more complicated as these things often are than you know than than people might sort of assume. I guess the the other thing I wanted to ask about um just as the follow-up on Mackenzie Scott, one of the things I'm fascinated with is the sense that you get people sort of critical voices saying, Oh well, yeah, that's all well and good, it's great that she's doing that and giving unrestricted gifts, but we don't know yet whether it's effective. And I I wonder whether my sense of that is I don't know whether it's a misguided criticism, because they're applying their own notions of effectiveness, which are sort of based on you know their existing paradigms of measurement, to something that views effectiveness in an entirely different way, and that maybe Scott would turn around and say, it's already effective, I've given them the money, that was the point, that you know they they're empowered and free to do with it as they want.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Do you do you get any sense of what's your sense of Oh I first of all, I think your read is absolutely spot on. I I entirely agree. Um, and I think there's a panic among the more sort of uh professionalized for I mean, of course, she uses Bridge Span and other consultants to, so it's not like she doesn't use any professional guidance, but these kind of this need that philanthropy must be the most strategic, the most uh innovative, the most analytical, etc., um, that has to be the most effective. I think there's a real panic that now somehow there's a counterexample out there that it that that doesn't necessarily need to be the way. So it there is that kind of defensiveness of like, no, no, no, you still, but you still really need the system of metrics of sort of designing and and applying these metrics to determine um efficacy. So I'm sure that she would say, yes, it's already effective. The statement is in me returning this money, no strings attached. That's the message that she wanted to send. And where I land is on the sort of on a third point, which is okay, yes, that is a really powerful statement. Do the material sort of consequences of having made that statement actually add up to the material power that you're trying to, that you're trying to help build, in addition to the kind of ideological power of saying, I I can give this money to you, no strings attached? Like, does it actually translate into more power, more? Leverage, more security for communities of color, poor and working class people? Is it actually yielding that result? And again, that is something we're only going to see over time. But that's not the same as saying, but how are you going to measure the what these organizations are doing with the money? That's uh that's a I think a different paradigm than what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting does giving money, does giving this money away in this way, as wide-ranging as it is, actually build greater power?

SPEAKER_02 44:28

So I mean it's still, I mean, essentially assessing it but slightly more on on its own terms in terms of what it is claiming to aim for.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Yes, yes. And I'm curious if that's if that's in the mix for her as well, right? You know, does she does she want to know longitudinally? Kind of what what would what might that look like? So I don't know. And you know, again, some of the other recommendations are that perhaps if she does, some of her money might be better used, as you were saying before, on kind of policy advocacy, um, or on sort of helping to build power among workers, among unions, among things like that, if again her concern really is racial and economic justice.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Yeah, and that touches on something I wanted to ask, which is, you know, you you kind of points you make the point in the book that actually, although I mean philanthropy is kind of arguably inherently a sort of child of capitalism, it's not possible without, you know, without a capitalistic structure of some sort and possibly symptomatic of inequality as well, particularly if we're talking about kind of big money philanthropy. But actually, you know, it can be used almost unlike any other form of funding to create the spaces that sit outside the capitalist system and kind of test different ways of doing things, which is kind of counterintuitive. Um so do you I mean, do you think that's something that actually philanthropy should look to emphasize that that actually that freedom that it has, which is the the flip side of perhaps being kind of democratically unaccountable, maybe allows it to do things that that kind of aren't part of the capitalist system?

SPEAKER_00 45:57

Yes. Well, I I I couldn't think of a a better exemplar than the Carnegie Libraries, right? That the of decommodifying access to to the goods of life, decommodifying access to to knowledge, to art, to recreation, almost sort of democratizing those. And to be clear, I I don't I hope that it is not just the kind of noblesse oblige version. I hope that it is we are able to provide those things for ourselves in a kind of more democratic culture of philanthropy and a culture of giving, where we're all able to kind of help sustain our parks, our libraries, um, and in, you know, above and beyond what public funding they receive. Because I think the above and beyond, it that in itself is the important message to say, you know, we deserve more than the bare minimum. We deserve to be ambitious, we deserve, as we talked about before, we deserve magnificence for everybody. So, yes, I do want to see philanthropy focusing on those things in tandem with justice politics. So in the book, I frame this as bread and roses, right? That I that is the what I want us to be aiming for as a paradigm of saying, okay, how can we ensure that our justice demands are being rectified by justice means, sort of by political means, and how can we ensure that our sort of the right to magnificence is something that philanthropy can provide more and more, and that more and more people can contribute to and see themselves reflected in.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

Yeah. And and what you mentioned there about sort of part of that being about democratizing philanthropy so that it isn't just the version which is how can we get wealthy people to do this with the money that they had. One of the the sort of the most fascinating ideas in the book, I think, and probably more radical suggestions, is the the idea you come up with for a giving wage. So this kind of maybe you could say a bit about what that is, because I'd love to explore it.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Thanks. The I don't know if you have these campaigns, I'm sure you do in the UK for a living wage, right? So the living wage, apparently we have to explain that people should be paid enough to sustain themselves, and that's that's the radical claim of the living wage. So I'm building on that and saying, okay, if a living wage is the fight for we need we should be paid enough to sustain ourselves, uh, a giving wage is people should be paid enough to sustain themselves and to such a degree of stability that they can comfortably give back, even in nominal amounts. And that in fact, giving is sort of part of a minimally dignified life, sort of living with that security and also living with that ability to express one's values and to help contribute to the common world, to become, to, to place oneself in it and to take pride and sort of feel a sense of small kind of ownership, both as an individual and as part of a collective, um, and having sort of created and uplifted the world around you in some way. So if I could just tell you a brief story, the I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, when the new baseball stadium went up, my father bought a plaque that has my name and my brother's name on it in the plaza, like around the new stadium. And we would love to visit that little plaque. I'm sure lots of people have examples of this: the brick in a walkway or a bench in a park. And it would be, but it was our name next to lots of other names, right? It wasn't just like the Amy and Sam Stadium. The, you know, it's it's that sense of I'm part of this polity. I had a I had my role to play, everyone else had their role to play. I take pride in mine, I take pride in being here alongside everyone else who played theirs.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Yeah, it's I thought it's really fascinating, and I mean, uh in the context both of sort of how we view philanthropy within a democracy, but also maybe within the tax system, because it struck me that you know it's partly about how we kind of structure the incentives for giving. But even more so, I was thinking at one point, you know, with a view to the future, obviously one of the things that gets talked about a lot is the impact of automation means that actually far fewer of us are working, and the idealistic version is maybe there's some form of you know universal income, there's less inequality. One version of that is well, nobody does any giving anymore because all of our needs are met by the state and nobody has any disposable income. But that to me is quite a depressing dystopian vision. And actually, if instead you sort of factored into you know the notion of a universal income, some portion of that that allows people still to have agency and engage in giving behavior, that you know, that seems to me much more utopian. And and I wondered, yeah, if if there was kind of you know, it also works in in terms of looking forward as well.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

It does. Well, main theorist that I rely on is Hannah Arendt. Um and I mentioned her in the in sort of trying to untangle this question of uh you know taxation and the sort of struggle for justice and really her sense of in if after our sort of struggle for justice um we have sort of arrived at its its telos, right? Its conclusion, then what fundamental human activity is left, right? That's really her her question. And we still need to express and produce and imagine and build worlds. That's what makes us human. So I do want to leave room for that to remain kind of the human project that we share in, um, even even in a utopian vision, and maybe you know, that is what would make it utopian, um, is that we were sort of all freed to exert ourselves primarily on that project um and without the sort of power struggles inherent in our capitalist system. So I absolutely would want it to be an affirmation of human expression um and human creation of our world, and that would become our work.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Yeah, I know it's great. And I just I have one final thing that I want to ask you before I let you go. It's been absolutely great, great to talk. Um, I guess it's a more general question about the book. So the book's definitely written with a kind of general, interested reader in mind, and it's very, very accessible, it's very chatty, it's lots of you know funny bits in it. Um, and you know, as somebody who's kind of written books intended for a general audience, myself, and tries as far as possible to write about philanthropy for a general audience. I was really interested in your perspective on, well, firstly, why it is that you would make the case that it's important to bring these issues to a general audience, and also how you would make that case. Like, what's your answer to the question of why should I care about philanthropy to somebody who doesn't know why they should?

SPEAKER_00 52:48

It's funny because when I would tell people I was writing a book on philanthropy, their eyes would light up. There is a latent, I think, curiosity because people are engaging with philanthropy all the time. They're looking at the letters that come to their house, they're volunteering, they're donating, they work for nonprofits, their, you know, friends work for nonprofits. It's in the air around them. So there aren't that many kind of invitations to explicitly kind of work through one's thoughts, and they would have all kinds of thoughts. What do I think about tax breaks? What do I think about Jeff Bezos going to space, right? There were all kinds of things on their minds that were coded as philanthropy questions. Um, and so I saw the book as sort of an opportunity to like sort of gather um and kind of catalyze whatever those conversations were, because I don't think there are nearly enough sort of organic forums and opportunities for people who aren't explicitly engaged in philanthropy, but are, you know, still deeply aware and observant and curious about its impact on the world.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Yeah, I mean, I would 100% agree. Like the number of times that I, you know, people say what do you do and they don't understand. And then at a separate juncture, something will come up in the news and they'll say, Oh, this is really interesting because of this. And I'm like, Yeah, that's what I do with my day job. It is interesting, isn't it? You know? Um, so it's yeah, I've got a very similar sense. Listen, Amy, it's been absolutely great to have a chance to talk. Um, I, you know, really, really enjoyed the book, and I'll definitely, you know, I thoroughly recommend that anyone listening reads it. I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find the book, uh, find more of your work, uh, find links to some of the things we've been talking about. Just remains to say, you know, all the best with getting out there in the world, and you know, certainly hope to meet in person at some point in the not too distant future.

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Oh, it's been such a pleasure, and thanks for the work that you do. Um, this has been such a joy. Thanks for everything.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Well, my thanks again to Amy for finding the time to come on the podcast. It was really great to have a chance to talk to her. Um, I'll put links in the show notes to places where you can uh get hold of a copy of the book, which I do thoroughly recommend uh you read. I found it really, really fascinating. It's it's very enjoyable, very readable, but also I think raises all kinds of interesting ideas and questions. So I would um definitely put it high on your philanthropy reading list. I'll also put links in the show notes to places where you can find a few other things Amy's written and kind of other interviews that she's done about the book. Uh I'll also put some links to things that I've written which might be relevant because obviously a lot of the issues in the book are ones that I'm really interested in and have written plenty about um and we've also talked about before on this podcast many times. So I'll put uh some resources where you can find more. If you're interested more broadly, it's always a good idea to check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. You can find all of the back issues of the Philanthropisms podcast, you can find lots of articles. There's also kind of short guides uh that are sort of less um context specific or time uh specific to issues in philanthropy. Uh, at some point, if I ever get time, I'm gonna add more of those. Uh if you've got suggestions for ones you'd like to see, please do let me know. If you've got suggestions also for the podcast in terms of people that I could talk to or topics that we could cover, please do drop me a line. You can find the contact details on the website. Um, if you want regular monthly updates, do sign up for the newsletter. Um that's a place where I kind of cover things that are happening in the news around philanthropy and civil society issues, updates on what we're doing at why philanthropy matters, and also just kind of some random assortments of things that I find out there in the philanthropes as I'm digging around uh every month. Um, other than that, uh just like, um, follow the podcast, leave a nice review wherever you get your podcasts um if you're so minded to do that. Um, do tell anybody that you think might be interested uh about the podcast and encourage them to try an episode or two. Um, I'm sure word of mouth recommendations do help. And other than that, uh, I will see you next time. Bye.