美国国家公共电台 NPR Generous Giving Or Phony Philanthropy? A Critique Of Well-Meaning 'Winners'

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The writer Anand Giridharadas has a critical view of American philanthropy. He's been writing about people who say they are changing the world for the better, but those efforts largely benefit the wealthy themselves.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Rich people are playing a double game. On one hand, there's no question they're giving away more money than has ever been given away in history. But I argue in this book that we also have one of the more predatory elites² in history, despite that philanthropy, despite that desire to change the world.

GREENE: Giridharadas spent time talking with affluent³ elites and has written a book that's called "Winners Take All: The Elite¹ Charade⁴ Of Changing The World." He argues that Internet entrepreneurs, innovators, even wealthy foundation directors tend to fight social problems only in ways that do not threaten people at the top. A new app developer helps part-time workers avoid cash shortages rather than fight for better pay. Foundations spend billions of dollars to help poor people in ways that really just mitigate⁵ an unfair economy in which the wealthiest have a larger and larger share. That's the world that Giridharadas sees, and he spoke⁶ about it with Steve Inskeep.

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE⁷: What bothers you about philanthropies who are attempting what they might call market-based solutions to problems, trying to solve a problem by selling a product, by starting a company, that sort of thing?

GIRIDHARADAS: There's this idea that has taken hold in our time, which is the idea of the win-win. And win-win sounds great, right? A win-win is the idea that essentially⁸ the winners can profit while helping⁹ other people. They can do well by doing good. Doing well by doing good has become the mantra of so many elites in our time. What this often ends up meaning in practice is that social change that offers a kickback¹⁰ to the winners is favored, and forms of social change that don't are not. So let's take some examples.

INSKEEP: Yeah.

GIRIDHARADAS: You know, if you take the issue of empowering women - well, in theory, many, many people would be in favor of that. But let's get down to the brass¹¹ tacks¹² of what do we do? Well, if you look at most rich countries, things like maternity¹³ leave and universal day care and, you know, various other social policies to actually give women and families the opportunity to play all of their roles seem to be what it takes. Well, what's the problem with that? It's kind of expensive for the winners. Frankly¹⁴, rich people would probably have to pay higher taxes in America to empower women in that way. So what happens? Do rich people ignore that demand of women for empowerment? No. They offer a light facsimile of change. They offer a win-win change. They offer change that doesn't change anything fundamental. Lean-in circles - let's get women together. Let's get them in a circle. Let's get them to, you know, mentor¹⁵ each other and raise their hands. This is the kind of change the winners can get on board with - change that changes nothing fundamental, change that keeps what they need, change that doesn't change their world.

INSKEEP: Let me ask a bottom-line question then. Are you simply saying in a fundamental way you want more government intervention¹⁶, more government spending, more government control, somewhat higher taxes to pay for that rather than private solutions?

GIRIDHARADAS: I think there's no question that we have lived on the receiving end of 40 years of dogma that government is bad and the market is good. We have been living amid market fundamentalism without necessarily realizing it. You know, it's easy to denigrate¹⁷ government. Let's just stop and pause and reflect on how well the United States of America functions in the spectrum¹⁸ of human societies out there. It's easy to be down on our government, even under this presidency¹⁹. And I am not calling for government to take over and control things. I'm calling for government to stop being shamed and discredited²⁰ and pushed out of the picture.

INSKEEP: So let me ask one other thing because you are critiquing people who feel that they're generous, feel that they want to help the world, people at Internet firms who classically believe they're trying to make the world a better place, people who have made millions of dollars and wanted to get - want to give it away. But you connect these people - quite a few of whom surely are politically liberal - with President Trump²¹. What is the link between people that you're criticizing and President Trump?

GIRIDHARADAS: A lot of well-meaning liberals - and it's going to - it hurts to hear this, but a lot of well-meaning liberals paved the road for Trump, and they did so in two ways - first of all, by peddling²² a lot of pseudo-change instead of actually fixing the American opportunity structure, instead of actually repairing the American Dream over the last 30, 40 years. By doing that, they allowed some of the biggest problems in this country to fester for decades and not be solved. And I think it's very plausible²³ that had we actually been solving those problems of trade and education and social mobility²⁴ Donald Trump would simply not have had the oxygen that his conflagration²⁵ required. But they also enable Trump in a second way, which is they contributed to the correct intuition across large parts of this country that elite Americans have rigged the game for themselves.

INSKEEP: You even take one further step and argue that President Trump is essentially a parody²⁶ of the sort of philanthropist you don't like - trust me, I'm very rich, I'm going to fix this problem for you, don't worry about it.

GIRIDHARADAS: One of the most disturbing things to me in reporting this book is I started to realize that a lot of Donald Trump's language and intellectual moves - if that is not an exaggeration - actually took root in the so-called philanthro-capitalists of the last generation. So when President Trump says only I can fix it, that idea doesn't start with him. That's actually something that has been pushed by these private-sector change agents for years. They are specially²⁷ capable of solving social problems. When Donald Trump says, yeah, yeah, I manufactured stuff in China and Mexico, but, you know, that's going to help me figure out how to make sure that never happens again, again, that is a move that America's plutocrats have been making for a long time. The arsonists²⁸ are the best firefighters.

INSKEEP: Anand Giridharadas is the author of "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade Of Changing The World." Thanks.

GIRIDHARADAS: Thank you, Steve.

(SOUNDBITE OF AMBINATE'S "AS IT IS")

1 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

2 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

3 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

4 charade   

n.用动作等表演文字意义的字谜游戏

参考例句：

• You must not refine too much upon this charade.你切不可过分推敲这个字谜。
• His poems,despite their dignity and felicity,have an air of charade.他的诗篇虽然庄严巧妙，却有猜迷之嫌。

5 mitigate   

vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和

参考例句：

• The government is trying to mitigate the effects of inflation.政府正试图缓和通货膨胀的影响。
• Governments should endeavour to mitigate distress.政府应努力缓解贫困问题。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

8 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 kickback   

n.酬金；佣金，回扣

参考例句：

• Mike got a kickback from a merchant.麦克从商人那里得到了回扣。
• The company had to kickback a lot to the corrupt officer.这家公司必须给腐败的政府官员很大一笔佣金。

11 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

12 tacks   

大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法

参考例句：

• Never mind the side issues, let's get down to brass tacks and thrash out a basic agreement. 别管枝节问题，让我们讨论问题的实质，以求得基本一致。
• Get down to the brass tacks,and quit talking round the subject. 谈实质问题吧，别兜圈子了。

13 maternity   

n.母性，母道，妇产科病房；adj.孕妇的，母性的

参考例句：

• Women workers are entitled to maternity leave with full pay.女工产假期间工资照发。
• Trainee nurses have to work for some weeks in maternity.受训的护士必须在产科病房工作数周。

14 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

15 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

16 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

17 denigrate   

v.诬蔑，诽谤

参考例句：

• It was unkind to denigrate her achievement.贬低她的成就是刻薄的。
• To assert this is to denigrate the effectiveness of the police.坚持这一点就是贬低警方的办事能力。

18 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

19 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

20 discredited   

不足信的，不名誉的

参考例句：

• The reactionary authorities are between two fires and have been discredited. 反动当局弄得进退维谷，不得人心。
• Her honour was discredited in the newspapers. 她的名声被报纸败坏了。

21 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

22 peddling   

忙于琐事的，无关紧要的

参考例句：

• He worked as a door-to-door salesman peddling cloths and brushes. 他的工作是上门推销抹布和刷子。
• "If he doesn't like peddling, why doesn't he practice law? "要是他不高兴卖柴火，干吗不当律师呢？

23 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

24 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

25 conflagration   

n.建筑物或森林大火

参考例句：

• A conflagration in 1947 reduced 90 percent of the houses to ashes.1947年的一场大火，使90%的房屋化为灰烬。
• The light of that conflagration will fade away.这熊熊烈火会渐渐熄灭。

26 parody   

n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文

参考例句：

• The parody was just a form of teasing.那个拙劣的模仿只是一种揶揄。
• North Korea looks like a grotesque parody of Mao's centrally controlled China,precisely the sort of system that Beijing has left behind.朝鲜看上去像是毛时代中央集权的中国的怪诞模仿，其体制恰恰是北京方面已经抛弃的。

27 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

28 arsonists   

n.纵火犯( arsonist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The factory was destroyed in a fire started by arsonists. 工厂在纵火犯引起的火灾中烧毀了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Australian Attorney-General Robert McClelland said suspected arsonists could face murder charges. 澳大利亚总检察长罗伯特麦克莱兰说，怀疑纵火犯可能面临谋杀指控。 来自互联网