A critique of Just Another Emperor
The recent book, Just Another Emperor, is getting a lot of attention in philanthropic circles these days. It slams the use of business thinking and approaches in philanthropy, and makes some drastic policy recommendations to fix elite philanthropy by those dubbed philanthrocapitalists. The term comes from Matthew Bishop of the Economist, whose book Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World, is coming out next month. I really don't like Just Another Emperor, and it's because of the spin techniques used to attempt to make the case for the policy changes it advocates. I couldn't contain myself and wrote a lengthy seven part critique on the Global Philanthropy Forum's Discussion Forum on the topic. If you checkout the link, my comments start near the bottom. I'm attaching my conclusion below. If you read the critique, you can tell this got me going. I'm working on writing this up as an essay (with editing) rather than a series of blog posts. A ...