[hupso_hide][hupso title=”#FairFoodProgram serves as backdrop to reflection from @PeterBuffett” URL=”https://ciw-online.org/?p=18278″]
For those of you who read my op-ed http://t.co/fm30svysP9 and wanted solutions.. here’s one: http://t.co/MmGThhUf4F
— Peter Buffett (@peterbuffett) February 19, 2014
Some of you may recall reading an op/ed published last summer in the pages of the New York Times entitled “The Charitable-Industrial Complex” that caused quite a stir at the time. It was penned by Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who together with his wife Jennifer founded a charitable foundation called the NoVo Foundation fifteen years ago. The op/ed’s central premise is captured in this extended excerpt:
As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.
But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life…
… I’m really not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism.
Often I hear people say, “if only they had what we have” (clean water, access to health products and free markets, better education, safer living conditions). Yes, these are all important. But no “charitable” (I hate that word) intervention can solve any of these issues. It can only kick the can down the road.
My wife and I know we don’t have the answers, but we do know how to listen. As we learn, we will continue to support conditions for systemic change.
It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code.
What we have is a crisis of imagination. Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. Foundation dollars should be the best “risk capital” out there.
There are people working hard at showing examples of other ways to live in a functioning society that truly creates greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean more people getting to have more stuff).
Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine.
The piece sparked quite a dialogue in the pages of the Times and was atop the “most emailed” list for days.
Well, six months later, Peter and Jennifer Buffett have penned a new piece as a sort of bookend to the NY Times op/ed, entitled “Can philanthropy support the transformation of society?,” this time published online at opendemocracy.net. Like the first piece, it’s another great and challenging read. But this second reflection, written following a January visit to the CIW in Immokalee, takes a longer look at the possibility of philanthropy being an effective tool in making community-drvien social change possible. The article begins with a look at the dramatic changes underway in Immokalee through the Fair Food Program:
In 1960, CBS News anchor Edward R. Murrow reported on working conditions in the area for his “Harvest of Shame” report, which described the harsh lives of migrant workers. Today, this is all changing due to the CIW’s Fair Food Program.
On a visit to Immokalee in January, 2014, we stood in the parking lot where the workers waited to be picked up in the early morning hours. The Coalition had provided us with a guide who described a pivotal moment in the struggle for workers’ rights.
“Many years of diligent, strategic hard work and organizing bring us to today,” he told us, “when Wal-Mart executives, produce-growers and migrant farm workers can sit down together, look one another in the eye as fellow human beings, shake hands and agree to work to end gross exploitation and harmful conditions in the produce supply chain.”
Wal-Mart, America’s largest retailer, had just signed on to the Fair Food Program, which had been initiated by the CIW in 2001. Grassroots pressure had already persuaded fast-food chains like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Burger King and Subway to agree to a price premium for their tomatoes, and to adhere to a binding commitment to safe working conditions, and zero tolerance for forced labor, child labor, sexual harassment and violence.
According to Susan Marquis, Dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, “the Fair Food Program, unlike most social-responsibility programs, is fully enforced and, as a result, has had real, measurable effects. Accountability comes from formal audits conducted by the Fair Food Standards Council, a nongovernmental, independent, third party, as well as a manned 24-hour complaint hotline.”
So far so good, but where does philanthropy enter this story?
The second half of the article examines this crucial question. After discussing some of the ills of philanthropy today discussed in the NY Times op/ed, the Buffetts go on to paint a picture of a philanthropy that supports, rather than squelches, transformation of the societal structures that produce exploitation, poverty, and powerlessness. Here’s an excerpt:
Philanthropy doesn’t have to be this way, just as foundations don’t have to see people as passive recipients of their largesse, or ignore the outside forces that create poverty and inequality. Short-term fixes and feel-good stories from philanthropists are not the changes that are needed.
Instead, we have to uncover the reasons why exploitation continues, and assist people in changing those conditions. And that process starts by listening to those who are directly involved in their own social change, like the workers in that parking lot in Immokalee. The people who know how to break the chains of oppression are the people who know how those chains operate and feel.
Hard-won victories for the Immokalee workers came about through their own efforts and those of the organizations that supported them. They had a much deeper understanding of constraints and opportunities, and a powerful, long-term vision: transforming the lives of migrant workers isn’t a job for some outside savior, but a process that unfolds from the inside out.
Typically these are not the groups that get funding from foundations (only 15 per cent of American philanthropy goes to social justice causes). They don’t have flashy brochures or promise quick solutions. They’re not celebrated as experts or rewarded with high salaries. But they are crucial to the prospects of lasting transformation.
It is an excellent, thought-provoking piece, and instead of excerpting the whole thing here, we’ll give you the link so that you can head over to opendemocracy.net yourself and read it in its entirety there.
Have a great weekend, and we’ll be seeing you soon on the road with the Now Is the Time Tour!