America, where teachers must beg for donations that a private foundation will match. Giving to a cause like this is kind. But we must ask what we have done to make this necessary.https://twitter.com/mshardisonsroom/status/1032437256768745472 …
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We in America did things around the house for ourselves. But our relatives in India had servants. And those servants lived dependent on the whims of those with money.
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There was no meaningful Indian safety net to speak of, no common institutions in the society to buffer them from the ups and downs of fate, no labor laws that were actually enforced for house servants.
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And so when rains flooded their village, or their roof fell in, or their child took ill, or malaria came for them, what did the servants do? They sought a donation.
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And affluent Indians are happy to make those donations. It makes them feel good and helps the servants. Win-win. But those affluent Indians don't pay servants a living wage. Don't fight for a safety net that will cost them. Don't abide by labor laws limiting the workday.
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Donors choose, indeed. But when we look at a faraway country, it may be more clear to us that that isn't a fair society. The donation is an act of generosity that is allowed to substitute for justice.
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America is becoming such a place. A society in which the rich ensure that there are no common institutions capable of helping ordinary people, which saves the winners money and makes them feel important when donations must be sought.
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I remember writing about the founder of TaskRabbit. This was her vision of the economy of the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/us/02iht-currents02.html …pic.twitter.com/OplbiLnYvz
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We are heading toward a state in which a small few throw bucks and tips and donations at the many while capturing and draining our shared institutions. A Downton Abbey republic. If you want to go deeper, there is a book where this thread came from: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/539747/winners-take-all-by-anand-giridharadas/9780451493248/ …
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