The rich “think” they’re the ones who can save the rest of us. As such, they’re the majority of who you see on the boards of philanthropic and social groups. Why would the rich want to help the poor? They only get rich off the backs of the poor in a closed system that is a society, and you can bet they don’t want to upset the status quo. Instead, the rich seek win-wins, where they serve to benefit from “helping.” They do things like… write books about making things better, and that’s exactly what this author did; he’s one of them.

It was an okay read, nothing too shocking, but yeah, the world of philanthropy is a hot mess. “Doing well by doing good” is the flawed mantra.

Highlights:

  • “Elites are shirking the duty of more meaningful reform.”
  • “Trump is the reductio ad absurdum of a culture that tasks elites with reforming the very systems that have made them and left others in the dust.” – how half of America didn’t see they voted in that which they loathe is beyond me.
  • “Much of what appears to be reform in our time is in fact the defense of stasis.”
  • “The only truly ultimate good is “human flourishing.””
  • “Many of them believed there was more power in building up what was good than in challenging what was bad.”
  • “The average American worker grew 72 percent more productive between 1973 and 2014, but the median worker’s pay rose only about 9 percent in this time.”
  • “When your leader still wears the beret from his days in the rebel army, you should be afraid.”
  • “On America’s campuses in recent decades, the fraction of academics on tenure track has collapsed by half.”
  • “For the aspiring thought leader, it is less important to have an undergirding of scholarly research than it is to be your idea—to perform and hawk it relentlessly.” – this is how I felt reading White Fragility.
  • “People react differently toward identifiable victims than to statistical victims who have not yet been identified.”
  • ““Poverty is essentially a question that you can address via charity,” he said. A person of means, seeing poverty, can write a check and reduce that poverty. “But inequality,” Giussani said, “you can’t, because inequality is not about giving back. Inequality is about how you make the money that you’re giving back in the first place.””
  • “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
  • “Generosity entitles the winners to exemption from questions.”
  • “Throwing scraps to keep the peace.”