The Golden Age of Generosity?

Generosity is fashionable again. Indeed there seems to be a trendy attitude of compassion that has developed in much of the wealthy developed world in recent years. The Time magazine’s choice of philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates along with Bono, as Persons of the Year, in 2005, and the 2009 Sunday Times giving list all seems to indicate a certain mood of the time... Does that mean that we have entered the golden age of caritas?                                          

              In recent years, philanthropy has increasingly received attention from the media as part of a neo-liberal agenda seeking to reduce the size of government involvement in global issues. From the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina or the 2010 Haiti earthquake, overwhelming disasters have captured global attention and challenged the global community with meeting massive humanitarian needs. In addition, large and conspicuous donations given by businesspersons like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, ubiquitous media spectacles of celebrity advocacy from Angelina Jolie to Oprah Winfrey and Elton John, coupled with blurred boundaries between business and benevolence with ethical brands like Product(RED), ONE water, or Red Nose Day Walkers crisps, and the private fundraising dinners of venture philanthropy: generosity seems to have considerably changed since the days of Carnegie...      

These recent developments are often being criticized. Ethical consumerism is seen as a new expression of Marx’s notion of commodity fetishism. According to this view, the consumer’s genuine wish for benevolence or his sense of guilt in front of global inequality, is fulfilled by meaningless consumption. For some ethical consumerism does not respond to a need for change but is the mere creation of yet another false need in consumer’s habits.  Celebrity advocacy is perceived as a pointless spectacle of celebrity worshiping. Most believe celebrities partake in activism in order to enhance or secure a good fan reputation. As for venture philanthropy, which seeks to apply business and venture capital finance principles to achieve philanthropic goals, it is often regarded as the contemporary equivalence of Antonio Gramsci’s Historical Bloc. Gramsci used the concept of historical bloc to indicate the ways in which a ruling class combines leadership of a block of social forces in civil society with its leadership in the sphere of production. Some see the alliance/presence of politicians, hedge fund moguls and celebrities at these charity fundraising dinners can be seen as the contemporary historical bloc. As such, philantrocapitalism can be seen as an ideology that helps the powerful to maintain their hegemony onto the dominated via consent. All these criticisms pinpoint to the fact that it is not consumption, celebrity culture, or the super rich that will change the world, a change they believe possible only through activism or a radical change in global politics... But how can one be sure?

The only certainty might be that we definitely live in an era of conspicuous giving. Maybe the motives behind generosity have always been about display and recognition on part of the donors. Nevertheless, if generosity seems more conspicuous than ever before it is because of the ubiquity and array of mass media we know today. Intrinsic aspects of capitalism like our media, the cult of celebrity and brands have colonized most of the aspects of our daily lives... even the most altruistic ones. Whether the recent developments of generosity are beneficial or not for the causes they attend to is not really the main focus of this blog. What is important is to analyse and pay close attention to these changes and it is exactly what this blog aims to do.