Jack Dorsey, the CEO and major stockholder in Twitter announced on April 7 that he’s donating $1 billion of his personal fortune to help combat the healthcare and economic effects of the COVID 19 Pandemic in the U.S.  While certainly a most appreciated gesture, the argument by Anand Giriharadas, Time magazine editor-at-large and author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” that billionaires can’t save us has never been more applicable.

The 30-minute video here is an interview with Anand, entitled “Should billionaires exist?”.  He says, “Over the last 30 or 40 years in this country (U.S.) we have practiced a social model that is billionaire friendly first.”  What he means, is that we’ve enabled a society that allows individuals to amass incredible fortunes by paying people as little as possible, avoiding as much in taxes as they can, hiding wealth offshore, setting up foundations to keep fortunes from being taxed, and lobbying in Washington DC for public policies that benefit a very small part of society.  The result, he maintains, is a defanged government and the vast majority of society living paycheck to paycheck, unable to share in this phenomenal growth in wealth.

And here’s the kicker. Those who benefit most from this social model come along and say—look how incompetent government is, and how social problems are getting worse. Let us fix it, because we know best what works…

At the root of this social model is a belief that the best society is achieved by leaving entrepreneurs alone and all good things will follow. But as Anand points out, the individual entrepreneur is just one type of person pursuing one type of good—namely money.  And as we’ve elevated this type of person to a mythical status, it’s come to dominate not just our economy but our whole culture. It’s a myth that says if the billionaire class does well that all of society will benefit—a myth that is finally being debunked in countless ways through the COVID 19 crisis.

“At certain moments in history, people are not trapped down below [economically] because they’ve failed to join the people up above.  They’re down below because the people above are standing on their necks.”  And so, he argues the only solution to lifting people up, is to stop the people standing on their necks…but those above are not going to willingly give up their power or status.

In other words, we are not going to change or improve the precarious position of 90% of the American people—our working class—through philanthropy, or social impact investing, or statements by business that profit should not be their only motive.  It can only happen the “old fashioned way,” through a democratic process whereby business is put in its proper place by regulation, taxation, policies and laws.

This democratic process is exactly what the progressive wing of the Democratic party stands for; the platform that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders ran on in their presidential campaigns. While both campaigns have been suspended, we can only hope their message and proposals are carried forward by grassroots movements inside or outside the establishment Democratic party.

A COVID19 update from Anand

Here is a more current video where Anand explains how the COVID pandemic and revealed what has been ignored for years about how the American economy operates and who benefits.