citizens

In the wake of Warren Buffett ending his extraordinary philanthropic partnership with the Gates Foundation, revisiting questions raised after its initial announcement.

During Center for Civil Society podcast, the scholar, author, onetime philanthropy executive, editor, and commentator discusses establishment philanthropy’s elitist progressivism and alternative thinking and examples, as well as the need to balance philanthropic freedom against concerns about philanthropic power.

With Michael E. Hartmann, the economist and policy analyst talks about his recent article “Think Tanks Have Defeated Democracy;” why the U.S. has so many think tanks; how that differs from other democracies; and what philanthropy, its own managerial elite, and the one it funds have done to civil society rightly understood and democracy in America.

Throughout our nation’s history, zealous left-wing crusades have gradually but invariably lost ground because, sooner or later, the practical and immediate demands of commerce reasserted themselves in the face of abstract utopian promises.

Philanthropy is uniquely unsuited for involvement in American politics. Indeed, what it considers its political strengths turn out to be serious liabilities. Nothing demonstrates this better than its role in the 2024 presidential election.