[News] Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions? - Part 2
Anti-Imperialist News
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Mon Sep 10 21:22:47 EDT 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=13734
Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions?
Part 2 of 2
by Michael Barker; September 09, 2007
Part one of this article reviewed some of the
ways by which liberal philanthropists work to
co-opt the activities of progressive groups all
over the world. This second part of the article
will continue to review the recent literature
pertaining to the insidious anti-radicalising
activities of liberal philanthropists and their
foundation, and conclude by offering suggestions
for how progressive activists might begin to move
beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
Defanging the Threat of Civil Rights
The 1960s civil rights movement was the first
documented social movement that received
substantial financial backing from philanthropic
foundations.[28] As might be expected, liberal
foundation support went almost entirely to
moderate professional movement organizations
like, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and their Legal
Defense and Education Fund, the Urban League, and
foundations also helped launch President
Kennedys Voter Education Project.[29] In the
last case, foundation support for the Voter
Education Project was arranged by the Kennedy
administration, who wanted to dissipate black
support of sit-in protests while simultaneously
obtaining the votes of more African-Americans, a
constituency that helped Kennedy win the 1960 election.[30]
One example of the type of indirect pressure
facing social movements reliant on foundation
support can be seen by examining Martin Luther
King, Jr.s activities as his campaigning became
more controversial in the years just prior to his
assassination. On 18 February 1967, King held a
strategy meeting where he said he wanted to take
a more active stance in opposing the Vietnam War:
noting that he was willing to break with the
Johnson administration even if the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference lost some
financial support (despite it already being in a
weak financial position, with contributions some
40 percent less than the previous year). In this
case, it seems, King was referring to the
potential loss of foundation support as, after
his first speech against the war a week later (on
25 February), he again voiced his concerns that
his new position would jeopardize an important Ford Foundation grant.[31]
Thus, by providing selective support of activist
groups during the 1960s, liberal foundations
promoted such groups independence from their
unpaid constituents working in the grassroots,
facilitating movement professionalization and
institutionalization. This allowed foundations
to direct dissent into legitimate channels and
limit goals to ameliorative rather than radical
change[32] , in the process promoting a
narrowing and taming of the potential for broad
dissent.[33] Herbert Haines (1988) supports this
point and argues that the increasing militancy of
the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
and the Congress for Racial Equality meant most
foundation funding was directed to groups who
expressed themselves through more moderate
actions.[34] He referred to this as the radical
flank effect a process which described the way
in which funding increased for nonmilitant or
moderate groups (reliant on institutional
tactics) as confrontational direct action
protests increased.[35] As Jack Walker (1983)
concludes, in his study of the influence of
foundations on interest groups, the reasoning
behind such an interventionist strategy is
simple. He argues that [f]oundation officials
believed that the long run stability of the
representative policy making system could be
assured only if legitimate organizational
channels could be provided for the frustration
and anger being expressed in protests and
outbreaks of political violence.[36]
From Apartheid to Democracy and Onwards
Moving to South Africas transition to
democracy, Roelofs (2007) observes that:
In the case of South Africa, the challenge for
Western elites was to disconnect the socialist
and anti-apartheid goals of the African National
Congress. Foundations aided in this process, by
framing the debate in the United States and by
creating civil-rights type NGOs in South Africa.
In 1978 the Rockefeller Foundation convened an
11-person Study Commission on US Policy Toward
Southern Africa, chaired by Franklin Thomas,
President of the Ford Foundation; it also
included Alan Pifer, President of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. In Eastern Europe, the
1975 East-West European Security agreement, known
as the Helsinki Accords prompted the
foundations to create Helsinki Watch (now Human
Rights Watch), an international NGO for
monitoring the agreements; Rockefeller, Ford, and
Soros Foundations are prominent supporters.[37]
Roelofs (2003) also point out that in addition to
coopting social movements, foundations have
played an important role in promoting identity
politics which has served to promote
fragmentation between similarly minded radical
social movements.[38] Madonna Thunder Hawk (2007)
also critiques the narrow scope of most activists work:
Previously, organizers would lay down their
issue when necessary and support another issue.
Now, most organizers are very specialized, and
cannot do anything unless they have a budget
first. More, foundations will often expect
organizations to be very specialized and wont
fund work that is outside their funding
priorities. This reality can limit an
organizations ability to be creative and
flexible as things change in our society.[39]
Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery (2007)
support such ideas, and suggest that activist:
work becomes compartmentalized products,
desired or undesired by the foundation market,
rated by trends or political relationships rather
than depth of work. How often do we hear that
youth work is hot right now? Funders determine
funding trends, and non-profits develop programs
to bend to these requests rather than assess real
needs and realistic goals. If we change our
product to meet foundation mandates, our
organizations might receive additional funding
and fiscal security. But more often than not, we
have also compromised our vision and betrayed the
communities that built us to address specific
needs, concerns, and perspectives. [40]
Likewise, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo (2007)
launches a similar broadside against multiculturalism, arguing that:
The existence of special and non-white
programs emerges from the logic of the liberalist
project of multiculturalism. While there are
clear racial hierarchies structured into
organizations, these programs are developed under
a multiculturalist model that renders race
marginal by heralding the primacy of culture
While culturally specific services and programs
might appear to address the injuries of racism,
this organizational strategy actually displaces
race from the broader analysis effectively
ignoring the power structure of white supremacy
and the structured subjugation of people of
color, which effects countless forms of violence
against women. By adding a program ostensibly
designed to serve the needs of a given community
of color, the larger organization avoids direct
accountability to that community. In other words,
the organizations own white supremacy remains
intact and fundamentally unchallenged, as are the
countless forms of violence against women perpetuated by racism.[41]
Thus, culturally competent and/or
multicultural organizational structures collude
with white supremacy and violence against women
of color, namely because this logic enables
organizations to dismiss the centrality of racism
in all institutions and organizations in the United States.[42]
World Social Forum: Funders Call the Tune
As a result of the lack of critical inquiry in to
the influence of liberal philanthropy on
progressive organizations, liberal foundations
have quietly insinuated their way into the heart
of the global social justice movement, having
played a key role in founding the World Social
Forum (WSF). Furthermore, it is not surprising
that, when critiques of the WSF are made, they
tend to be met with a resounding silence by
progressive activists and their media (most of
which have been founded and funded by liberal foundations, see later).[43]
The Research Unit for Political Economy (2007)
astutely observes, the WSF constitutes an
important intervention by foundations in social
movements internationally because (1) many of
the NGOs attending the WSF obtain state and/or
foundation funding, and (2) the WSFs material
base the funding for its activity is heavily
dependent on foundations.[44] It is perhaps
stating the obvious to note that more attention
should be paid to such important critiques;
however, if further critical investigations then
determined that such claims were unsubstantiated
then the WSF could only be strengthened. On the
other hand, if activists collectively decided
that the receipt of liberal foundation funding is
problematic as happened at the 2004 WSF in
Mumbai then further steps must be immediately
taken to address the issue. Yet, as the Research
Unit for Political Economy point out, although:
the WSF India committees decision to disavow
funds from certain institutions marked a victory
for the critics of the WSF, it did not really
resolve the issue. If the organizers disavowed
funds from these sources on principle (rather
than merely because uncomfortable questions were
raised), it is difficult to understand why the
prohibition did not extend as well to
organizations funded by them. This left scope for
the WSF to accept funds from organizations funded
in turn by Ford. Moreover,
the bulk of the WSFs
expenses are borne by participating
organizations, many of which are in turn funded
by Ford and other such barred sources.[45]
Clearly important (and concerning) questions have
been raised about the democratic legitimacy of
the WSF, but most activists still remain unaware
of the existence of such well founded critiques.
This is problematic and, as Stephanie Guilloud
and William Cordery (2007) argue, although
fundraising is an important component of most
organizing efforts in the United States it:
is usually perceived by activists as our nasty
compromise within an evil capitalist structure.
As long as we relegate fundraising to a dirty
chore better handled by grant writers and
development directors than organizers, we miss an
opportunity to create stepping stones toward community-based economies.[46]
However, as Dylan Rodriguez (2007) observes:
when one attempts to engage [in] a critical
discussion regarding the political problems of
working with these and other foundations, and
especially when one is interested in naming them
as the gently repressive evil cousins of the
more prototypically evil right-wing foundations,
the establishment Left becomes profoundly
defensive of its financial patrons. I would argue
that this is a liberal-progressive vision that
marginalizes the radical, revolutionary, and
proto-revolutionary forms of activism,
insurrection, and resistance that refuse to
participate in the [George] Soros charade of
shared values, and are uninterested in trying
to improve the imperfect. The social truth of
the existing society is that it is based on the
production of massive, unequal, and
hierarchically organized disenfranchisement,
suffering, and death of those populations who are
targeted for containment and political/social
liquidation-a violent social order produced under
the dictates of democracy, peace, security,
and justice that form the historical and
political foundations of the very same white
civil society on which the NPIC [Non-Profit
Industrial Complex] Left is based. [47]
Guilloud and Cordery (2007) believe it is better
to be dissolved by the community than floated by
foundations. Indeed, they go on to correctly
state the obvious, by noting that community
supported organizations will, by necessity, have
to serve the needs of democracy because
[m]embers who contribute to an organization will
stop contributing when the work is no longer valuable.[48]
Moving Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
People in non-profits are not necessarily
consciously thinking that they are selling out.
But just by trying to keep funding and pay
everyone's salaries, they start to unconsciously
limit their imagination of what they could do. In
addition, the non-profit structure supports a
paternalistic relationship in which non-profits
from outside our Communities fund their own
hand-picked organizers, rather than funding us to
do the work ourselves. (Madonna Thunder Hawk, 2007) [49]
Given the historical overview of liberal
foundations presented in this article it is
uncontroversial to suggest that liberal
philanthropists who also support elite planning
groups will not facilitate the massive radical
social changes that will encourage the global
adoption of participatory democracy.[50] Taking
a global view, James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer
(2004) argue that most funding for poverty
alleviation through NGOs also has had little positive effect and:
On the contrary, foreign aid directed toward
NGOs has undermined national decision-making,
given that most projects and priorities are set
out by the European or US-based NGOs. In
addition, NGO projects tend to co-opt local
leaders and turn them into functionaries
administering local projects that fail to deal
with the structural problems and crises of the
recipient countries. Worse yet, NGO funding has
led to a proliferation of competing groups, which
set communities and groups against each other,
undermining existing social movements. Rather
than compensating for the social damage inflicted
by free market policies and conditions of debt
bondage, the NGO channelled foreign aid
complements the IFIs [international financial
institutions] neo-liberal agenda.[51]
Referring to the detrimental influence of the
liberal philanthropy in the US, Andrea Smith (2007) also observes that:
[T]he NPIC [Non-Profit Industrial Complex]
contributes to a mode of organizing that is
ultimately unsustainable. To radically change
society, we must build mass movements that can
topple systems of domination, such as capitalism.
However, the NPIC encourages us to think of
social justice organizing as a career; that is,
you do the work if you can get paid for it.
However, a mass movement requires the involvement
of millions of people, most of whom cannot get
paid. By trying to do grassroots organizing
through this careerist model, we are essentially
asking a few people to work more than full-time
to make up for the work that needs to be done by millions.
In addition, the NPIC promotes a social movement
culture that is non-collaborative, narrowly
focused, and competitive. To retain the support
of benefactors, groups must compete with each
other for funding by promoting only their own
work, whether or not their organizing strategies
are successful. This culture prevents activists
from having collaborative dialogues where we can
honestly share our failures as well as our
successes. In addition, after being forced to
frame everything we do as a success, we become
stuck in having to repeat the same strategies
because we insisted to funders they were
successful, even if they were not. Consequently,
we become inflexible rather than fluid and ever
changing in our strategies, which is what a
movement for social transformation really
requires. And as we become more concerned with
attracting funders than with organizing
mass-based movements, we start niche marketing
the work of our organizations. [52]
Amara H. Perez and Sisters in Action for Power (2007) also add that:
In addition to the power and influence of
foundation funding, the non-profit model itself
has contributed to the co-optation of our work
and institutionalized a structure that has
normalized a corporate culture for the way our
work is ultimately carried out.[53]
Fortunately, the answers to the funding problems
raised in this article are rather simple.
However, given the lack of critical inquiry into
the anti-democratic influence of liberal
foundations on progressive social change, first
and foremost progressive activists need to
publicly acknowledge that a problem exists before
appropriate solutions can be devised and
implemented. Therefore, the first step that I
propose needs to be taken by progressive
activists is to launch a vibrant public
discussion of the broader role of liberal
foundations in funding social change an action
that will rely for the most part upon the
interest and support of grassroots activists all over the world.
Given the insidious activities of liberal
foundations, the very existence of many social
justice organizations has often come to rest more
on the effectiveness of professional (and
amateur) grant writers than on skilled-much less
radical political educators and organizers
(Rodriguez, 2007). So now more than ever, it is
vital that progressive citizens committed to a
participatory democracy work to develop alternate
funding mechanisms for sustaining grassroots
activism so they can break the insidious cycle
of competition and co-optation set up by liberal
foundations and their cohorts.[54] Indeed as
Guilloud and Cordery (2007) point out,
[d]eveloping a real community-based economic
system that redistributes wealth and allows all
people to gain access to what they need is
essential to complete our vision of a liberated
world. Grassroots fundraising strategies are a step in that direction. [55]
Unfortunately, raising awareness of the vexing
issues raised in this article may be harder than
one might first expect. This is because in some
instances the progressive media themselves may be
preventing an open discussion of the influence of
liberal philanthropy on social change due to
their reliance (or at least good relations) with
liberal foundations. So sadly as Bob Feldman
(2007) observes, [w]hen the rare report calls
attention to the possibility of foundation
influence over the left-wing media or think
tanks, a typical attitude is unqualified denial.[56] Feldman concludes:
that organizations and media generally
considered left-wing have in recent years
received substantial funding from liberal
foundations. This information alone is
significant, as left activists and scholars are
either unaware of or uninterested in examining
the nature and consequences of such financing.
Furthermore, although a definitive evaluation
would require a massive content analysis project,
there is much evidence that the funded left has
moved towards the mainstream as it has increased
its dependence on foundations. This is shown by
the progressive, reformist tone of formerly
radical organizations; the gradual disappearance
of challenges to the economic and political power
of corporations or United States militarism and
imperialism; and silence on the relationship of
liberal foundations to either politics and
culture in general, or to their own
organizations. Critiquing right wing foundations,
media, and think tanks may be fair game, but to
explain our current situation, or to discover
what has happened to the left, a more inclusive investigation is needed." [57]
It is clear that the barriers to spreading the
word about liberal philanthropys overt
colonization of progressive social change are
large but they are certainly not insurmountable
to dedicated activists. There are still plenty of
alternative media outlets that should be willing
to distribute trenchant critiques of liberal
philanthropy given persistent pressure from the
activist community, while internet blogs can also
supplement individual communicative efforts to
widen the debate. If activists fail to address
the crucial issue of liberal philanthropy now
this will no doubt have dire consequences for the
future of progressive activism - and democracy
more generally - and it is important to recognise
that liberal foundations are not all powerful and
that the future, as always, lies in our hands and not theirs.
Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at
Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached
at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au
References
[28] Foundation funding for social movements was
for the most part nonexistent before the 1960s,
with foundation grants tending to focus on more
general issues like education. By 1970 this had
changed and 65 foundations distributed 311 grants
to social activists worth around $11 million.
[29] Craig J. Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert,
Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and
Professional Social Movement Organizations in the
Development of the Black Movement, American Sociological Review, 51, 1986.
[30] Craig J. Jenkins, Channeling Social
Protest: Foundation Patronage of Contemporary Social Movements, p.212.
[31] David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin
Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (Random House, 1988), pp.545-6.
[32] Frances B. McCrea and Gerald E. Markle,
Minutes to Midnight: Nuclear Weapons Protest in
America (Newbury Park, Calif.: SAGE, 1989), p.37.
[33] John D. McCarthy, David W. Britt, and Mark
Wolfson, The Institutional Channeling of Social
Movements by the State in the United States, In:
L. Kriesberg and M. Spencer (eds.) Research in
Social Movements, Conflicts and Change
(Greenwich, CT.: JAI Press, 1991), pp.69-70.
[34] Herbert H. Haines, Black Radicals and the
Civil Rights Mainstream, 1954-1970 (Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1988), pp.82-99.
[35] Herbert Haines, Black Radicalization and
the Funding of Civil Rights, Social Problems, 32, 1984, pp.31-43.
[36] Jack L. Walker, The Origins and Maintenance
of Interest Groups in America, American
Political Science Review, 77, 1983, p.401.
[37] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and
Collaboration, Critical Sociology, Volume 33, Number 3, 2007, p.497.
[38] Joan Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy, p.44.
For more on this subject see David Rieff,
Multiculturalisms Silent Partner,Harpers, August 1993, pp.62-72.
Alisa Bierria (2007) points out that: All too
often, inclusively has come to mean that we start
with an organizing model developed with white,
middle-class people in mind, and then simply add
a multicultural component to it. We should
include as many voices as possible, without
asking what exactly are we being included in?
However, as Kimberle Crenshaw has noted, it is
not enough to be sensitive to difference, we must
ask what difference the difference makes. That
is, instead of saying, how can we include women
of color, women with disabilities, etc., we must
ask, what would our analysis and organizing
practice look like if we centered them in it? By
following a politics of re-centering rather than
inclusion, we often find that we see the issue
differently, not just for the group in question,
but everyone. Alisa Bierria, Communities
against rape and abuse (CARA), In: INCITE! Women
of Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution
Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit
Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), pp.153-4.
[39] Madonna Thunder Hawk, Native Organizing
Before the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, In:
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (eds.)
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.106.
[40] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery,
Fundraising is Not a Dirty Word, In: INCITE!
Women of Color Against Violence (eds.) The
Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The
Non-Profit Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.108.
[41] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, we were never
meant to survive Fighting Violence Against Women
and the Forth World War, In: INCITE! Women of
Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution Will
Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial
Complex (South End Press, 2007), pp.115-6.
[42] Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, we were never
meant to survive Fighting Violence Against Women
and the Forth World War, p.116.
[43] Michael Barker, The Liberal Foundations of
Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding
Opportunities for Radical Media Reform, Global
Media (Submitted); Bob Feldman, Report from the
Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks
Foundation-Managed Protest?, Critical Sociology, 33 (2007).
[44] Research Unit for Political Economy,
Foundations and Mass Movements: The Case of the
World Social Forum, Critical Sociology, 33 (3), 2007, p.506.
[45] Research Unit for Political Economy,
Foundations and Mass Movements, pp.529-30.
[46] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery,
Fundraising is Not a Dirty Word, p.107.
[47] Dylan Rodriguez, The Political Logic of the
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women
of Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution
Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit
Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.35-6.
[48] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery,
Fundraising is Not a Dirty Word, p.110.
[49] Madonna Thunder Hawk, Native Organizing
Before the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, pp.105-6.
[50] Two of the most influential liberal
foundations, the Ford Foundation and the
Rockefeller Foundation, created and continue to
provide substantial financial aid to elite
planning groups like the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Trilateral Commission. For
example, the
<http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/ar2006/pdf/AR06FordFoundationComplete.pdf>Ford
Foundations 2006 Annual Report (p.62) notes that
they gave the Council on Foreign Relations a
$200,000 grant For research, seminars and
publications on the role of women in conflict
prevention, post-conflict reconstruction and
state building. Furthermore, as Roelofs (2003, p.98-9) notes:
During the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) debate, the EPI [Economic Policy
Institute] (funded by Ford and others) made
technical objections to the models supporting
the trade agreement. At the same time, a much
greater effect was produced by Ford funding to
the other side, which included grants to the
Institute for International Economics, a think
tank that emphasizes the benefits of NAFTA. In
addition, the Ford Foundation also awarded
grants to environmental groups and the Southwest
Voters Research Institute to convene forums on
NAFTA. These resulted in an alliance of 100
Latino organizations and elected officials,
called the Latino Consensus on NAFTA, which
provided conditional support for the agreement.
Also see Laurence H. Shoup, and William Minter,
Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign
Relations and United States Foreign Policy (New
York: Monthly Review Press, 1977); Holly Sklar,
Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and
Elite Planning For World Management (Boston: South End Press, 1980).
[51 James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Age of
Reverse Aid: Neo-liberalism as Catalyst of
Regression, In: Jan P. Pronk (ed.) Catalysing
Development (Blackwell Publishers,
2004), pp.70-1.
[52] Andrea Smith, Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, p.10.
[53] Amara H. Perez, and Sisters in Action for
Power, Between Radical Theory and Community
Praxis: Reflections on Organizing and the
Non-Profit Industrial Complex, In: INCITE! Women
of Color Against Violence (eds.) The Revolution
Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit
Industrial Complex (South End Press, 2007), p.93.
[54] Brian Tokar, Earth for Sale: Reclaiming
Ecology in the Age of Corporate Greenwash
(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1997), p.214.
[55] Stephanie Guilloud and William Cordery,
Fundraising is Not a Dirty Word, p.111.
Making this transition may be easier than
expected, because Rodriguez (2007) suggest that
the ongoing work to maintain and prospect
foundation money, combined with administrative
obligations and developing infrastructure, was
more taxing and exhausting than confronting any
institution to fight for a policy change. Dylan
Rodriguez, The Political Logic of the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, p.27.
[56] Bob Feldman, Report from the Field: Left
Media and Left Think Tanks Foundation-Managed Protest?, p.428.
[57] Bob Feldman, Report from the Field: Left
Media and Left Think Tanks Foundation-Managed Protest?, p. 445.
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