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About the Author
Stan Katz teaches public and international affairs and directs the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is a past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for Legal History. He comments frequently on policy issues relating to higher education, particularly liberal education, and on the humanities and social sciences, philanthropy, scholarly relations with Cuba, and the interplay of civil society, constitutionalism, and democracy. And on his beloved Cubs.
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Mark Bauerlein Marc Bousquet Laurie Fendrich Dan Greenberg Stan Katz Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Bob Zemsky Recent PostsCan You Use Orphan Works? | Comment [9] SNAAP Judgments | Comment [6] Thanks, Karen | Comment [5] Symphony Orchestra as a Team Sport | Comment [2] Is the E-Book in Trouble? | Comment [2] Featured Articles By the Author
Studying Philanthropy at StanfordI spent an interesting day last week at Stanford University, where I gave a seminar on recent trends in philanthropy for the newly established Center on Philanthropy and Society. The Center was launched by two organizational sociologists, Woody Powell and Debra Meyerson, who work especially with Rob Reich, a young political scientist who has recently begun to write a series of intelligently provocative pieces on egalitarianism and philanthropy. The Center maintains a seminar series (which is why I was invited), but so far as I can tell it mainly exists to support the research of graduate students in any field who are interested in some aspect of philanthropy. I was impressed by the intelligence and commitment of the grad students who came to my seminar. The effort strikes me as important for at least two reasons. First, it represents one of the newest efforts to institutionalize the study of philanthropy in the academy. I have been working in the field since the mid-1970s, which is when the new wave of interest in philanthropy began, and I have long hoped to see the field accepted as important by the major universities. New centers have emerged over time (at the CUNY Graduate Center, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, IUPUI and UCLA, for instance) and a good deal of new scholarship has been produced, but progress has been slow and scholarly results mixed, at best. Second, the establishment of the Stanford Center highlights the importance of convincing bright young scholars (graduate students and faculty of Rob Reich’s quality) that the field is one that can sustain first-rate scholarship. Beginning new interdisciplinary (or, better, non-disciplinary-based) fields is always difficult, but it is hardest in the social sciences and humanities. So when elite universities take up the torch for a new field, it is encouraging — it is also heartening to know that Joel Fleishman and Ed Skloot are starting a new center on philanthropic foundations at Duke University. Perhaps the momentum is picking up, and a real “field” of philanthropy will finally emerge. I am sure that we need to understand philanthropy much better than we do if we are to comprehend the changes that the enormous surge in personal wealth in this country are making. We have recently witnessed Congressional criticism of the field, based mostly on a recurrent neo-populist suspicion that the special legal advantages that great wealth sheltered in philanthropic perpetuities confers upon the rich is a threat to democracy. Seems to me that is worth thinking, and worrying, about. Posted at 11:48:09 AM on February 3, 2008 | All postings by Stan KatzCommentsCommenting is closed for this article.
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The elites graduated from and intructing at tier one university institutions certainly benefit from being associated with philanthropy. Nothing better than a token 1% of one’s wealth spread media-ly around while 99% goes to homes, boats, escapades with sexual partners, and drugs or rehab. For every Gates putting up serious money there are literally 700 non-Gates putting up a nice front. When the elites of the United States decide to take responsibility for the basic service care—parents, health, elementary education—of the entire population of the United States, we can start getting excited about philanthropy. But by all means let us study the excuse, the cover, the front, the appearance—scholarship can study anything. Let us study the appearance as just one MORE thing to do before getting the elites of the United States to take basic care of the entire population they e-lite.
Innovation model number 65—how to out-innovate dumb Europeans and East Asians—generate elite classes that furnish the poorer 1/7th of their national population with no parents, no education, and no healtcare. Thusly unconstrained by the neediest portion of one’s own nation, innovativity springs forth!!! Long live innovation!!!! It will somehow care for what we do not care a whit for. Long live invisible hands! The more invisible the better!!! Oh? Our values are not world best? Treason!!!!
— Richard Tabor Greene · Feb 4, 11:10 AM · #
It’s unclear from his wording what the writer thinks we should be worrying about. The actual risk to democracy posed by the rise of private philanthropy & corresponding decline in public money allocated to social programs? (which I believe is one of Prof. Reich’s interests) Or the “recurrent neo-populist suspicion” that this development is a threat to democracy? I’m not sure the latter concern deserves such a discrediting appellation, and it would be good to get a clarification on this.
— J. Gower · Feb 5, 10:08 AM · #