John
McKnight directs Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul
University. He objects to the standard approach toward a neighborhood by urban
planners, government officials, and bank executives, building inspectors,
social workers, some police officers and even some teachers. Instead of
projecting joy and enthusiasm, they give exclusive attention to a
neighborhood’s defects (old buildings, broken curbs, high number of transients,
roaming delinquents, dim street lights and more). The well-meaning prophets of
doom sometimes propose cosmetic interventions (new basketball hoops and
additional street sweeping) to buoy drooping spirits of families.
McKnight, contrary to standard
understanding, thinks many seemingly good interventions are in fact disabling help. A forceful ideology, he
details, assumes some people are not competent neighbors; they are instead
clients with deficient parts. This ideology is apolitical. There is no need to
radically address the economic or cultural environment. Service, sincerely
delivered, is an unquestioned good. There is no compelling need to explain why
our country has terrific medical discoveries and many improved medical
instruments and yet poor health. Or why our country has lots of knowledge about
food and great interest in culinary arts and yet poor nutrition. Or lots of new
classroom technology and yet declining reading scores.
Anand Giridharadas applies this analysis
to those who sincerely believe that by doing
well they can do good. Idealistic
students, enterprising tech engineers and many innovators in finance “declare
themselves partisans of change,” he writes in Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World (Knopf,
2018). Yet they selectively take on problems with projects they design, jumping
over most of the people affected by the problem and quite often blocking
government agencies from access to the problem. The goodwill of these educated
and highly positioned do-gooders is insufficient, Giridharadas argues. In many
cases it is harmful.
The tech entrepreneurs and the enterprising
finance wizards, Giridharadas says, believe that “to change the world you must
rely on the techniques, resources and personnel of capitalism.” The approach of
these economic and cultural leaders is taught to students at big-name colleges.
“The private push into world betterment,” he continues, sidelines “the older
language of power, justice and rights.” Instead, the elite-style of social
change uses phrases like leveraged data,
social impact, and incubation of
ideas, start-up venture, empowering endeavor, social enterprise club, impact investment
and more.
The internet began in the mid-1960s,
first among select engineers. It soon grew in scope and now is, of course,
nearly universally used constantly by way of many types of devices. A
philosophy came along with the hardware and the programs. The big tech players
and their fans, says Giridharadas, believe in the leveling ability of
technology. Everyone is entitled to access, they say, and extensive use of
cyberspace, in and of itself, increases equality. (See for example The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman,
Picador, 2007.)
Perhaps the tech giants are sincere. But
their notion of change always includes a payoff for the tech entity and never
addresses the basics of our economic system or our dominant culture. Keep in
mind: Today’s tech industry is more concentrated than any other sector. A small
number of people own the entire infrastructure. Their companies greatly add to
wealth inequality.
Is it better then for tech leaders and
for young adults who aspire to do good and do well to stifle their philanthropy
and cease their forays into social problems? Might they simply put their excess
wealth and lingering idealism back into their portfolio?
Catholic social doctrine has pertinent principles.
According to subsidiarity, decisions
should be made as close as possible to those affected by the decision.
Maternalism or paternalism is a step or two removed from the scene. For
example, says Catholicism, workers make the decision for or against a union
without interference from management, even if management seemingly knows
better. According to the principle of
participation, a society increases in justice as more families have an
increasing stake in the economy and the direction of culture. Catholicism
favors private property and never requires exact material equality of income or
wealth. It does insist, however, that all families have agency—usually by way
of intermediate associations.
Context is a crucial difference between
tech/finance philosophy and Catholicism. Individuals login and travel around the
tech world as they please. In Catholicism, there is no such thing as a person
without an environment; without family, friends, clubs, and more. A large
portion of the social environment, Catholicism appreciates, is a gift.
Winners
Take All is an important critique; one made by only a small
number of other commentators like John McKnight in The Careless Society (Basic Books, 1995) and more recently by Thomas
Frank in Listen Liberal (Henry Holt,
2016).
Droel is the author of Public
Friendship (National Center for the Laity, PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL
60629; $5)
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