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'No Such Thing As a Free Gift' Casts a Critical Eye At Gates Foundation (theintercept.com)
theodp writes: The Intercept's Michael Massing takes a look at "How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of 'Hacker Philanthropy." He writes, "Despite its impact, few book-length assessments of the foundation's work have appeared. Now Linsey McGoey, a sociologist at the University of Essex, is seeking to fill the gap. 'Just how efficient is Gates's philanthropic spending?' she asks in No Such Thing as a Free Gift. 'Are the billions he has spent on U.S. primary and secondary schools improving education outcomes? Are global health grants directed at the largest health killers? Is the Gates Foundation improving access to affordable medicines, or are patent rights taking priority over human rights?' As the title of her book suggests, McGoey answers all of these questions in the negative. The good the foundation has done, she believes, is far outweighed by the harm." Massing adds, "Bill and Melinda Gates answer to no electorate, board, or shareholders; they are accountable mainly to themselves. What's more, the many millions of dollars the foundation has bestowed on nonprofits and news organizations has led to a natural reluctance on their part to criticize it. There's even a name for it: the 'Bill Chill' effect."
If the foundation is actually doing harm, rather than good, then people should know this and raise a fuss about it so that the directors hear it, if nothing else.
Charity can be complex, as it turns out. Authentic efforts at providing aid can have unintended consequences. One poignant example is giving free food to communities that are on the edge of starvation. The side effect is that, people eat the free food and spend their pennies on something other than food, which instantly bankrupts the local farmers. It takes quite a long time before the farmers can set up shop again, so now where there was a barely-sufficient food supply, there is no food supply at all, and the dependence on charity is even greater.
The most effective charity efforts are ones that increase the community's ability to self-sustain. This means increasing their general level of economic activity. Microcredit has a very good track-record at doing this, but is commonly (and incorrectly) criticized as a means of making money off poor people, and of burdening them with financial debt in addition to their other woes. When done right, micro credit has neither of these effects, and much better long-term benefits than just giving away free food.
Surprisingly, giving away free money has actually been shown to promote healthier, more self-sustaining economies. People think "those poor people will just spend it on booze" which might make sense in a first world country where "the poor" are the mentally-diseased bums that can never and will never hold a job. In reality, when free money is given to members of poor communities, they treat it like gold and use it very wisely.
My two cents.
Last week I was at a post production studio in Mumbai. The editor was working on an Indian Hindi TV series - MAIN KUCH BHI KAR SAKTHI HOON (I Can Do Anything.) https://www.youtube.com/user/mkbksh
The show is set in rural India, follows the usual Hindi or Indian cinema/television melodramatic hyperventilating style. Here is the beef...rather than inane plots on good versus evil, bad mother in laws and familiar Indian TV soap tropes, this show had female protagonists who were bucking the system and bringing out change in the society.
The familiar style they used made sure a majority of the audience will feel comfortable.
Gates Foundation was one of the Producers. This is thinking out of the box...you need a bit of 'good old propaganda' to support you when you go to rural communities to change their perception on unhealthy practices.
Tat Tvam Asi
For all his "geek" status, Bill Gates (with his foundation) failed elementary statistics. He succumbed to the law of small numbers and idiotically pushed for smaller schools for a long period spending a lot of time, money and energy convincing policy makers that the small schools will make students better.
They thought so only because frequently among the best performing schools were small schools. Idiots didn't notice that among the worst performers were ALSO small schools - small samples just lend themselves to a higher variability.
Read details here - http://marginalrevolution.com/...
If a lot of money is spent by non-accountable idiot organizations , it is not only not good for society but actively harmful.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.