Philanthrogovernment

Leon Wieseltier, the New Republic's literary editor, is a serious thinker.  He writes the "Washington Diarist" column on the last page of each issue, and it is always weighty and thought-provoking. It was from him that I first grasped the lightweightness of Obamism in international affairs.

This week he takes on philanthrogovernment, aka Bloombergism.  Worth the price of the issue (non-subscribers can't get the piece online).  Short summary here.

He begins with the article in the NY Times last winter about hedge fund operators getting involved in funding charter schools.   Initially it gives him a warm fuzzy feeling, then his blood starts to run a bit cold.  He catches a whiff of the hubris of these operators, of their data-driveness, and it worrries him.

From there he seques into a discussion of philanthrocapitalism, of the ability of wealthy philanthropists to address public problems governments have trouble with.  Bloombergism, he dubs this phenomenon, after New York mayor and bazillionaire Michael  Bloomberg.  All well and good, but, he notes, concerns rise when philanthropy creeps over the line and begins to subvert the democratic process -- as it manifestly has in New York, and especially in the operation of its public education system.

And then:

The signature contribution of the philanthrocapitalist to the American political tradition is the idea that social problems have market solutions. In the midst of our present troubles, however, there is much evidence to justify a new look at the grip of American business upon the American policy imagination. Isn’t it now ruefully clear that it all depends? In her exhilarating and deeply humane new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch exposes some of the fallacies of the business paradigm, and insists (in a valiant chapter called “The Billionaire Boys’ Club”) that “there is something fundamentally antidemocratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society’s wealthiest people,” who “represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions.” To whom, really, are they accountable?

It's great to see someone like Wieseltier paying attention to this.  Buy or get a copy of the magazine and read it for yourself.