{"id":52774,"date":"2013-07-24T09:30:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T08:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/meet-the-private-equity-tycoon-at-the-forefront-of-americas-new-phony-philanthropy\/52774\/"},"modified":"2013-07-24T16:59:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T15:59:22","slug":"meet-the-private-equity-tycoon-at-the-forefront-of-americas-new-phony-philanthropy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/meet-the-private-equity-tycoon-at-the-forefront-of-americas-new-phony-philanthropy\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Private Equity Tycoon at the Forefront of America’s New Phony Philanthropy"},"content":{"rendered":"

There used to be a thing we called \u201cphilanthropy.\u201d Even though the concept of corporate-funded charity has raised thorny ethical questions since its Gilded Age birth<\/a> (asking, for example, why companies give money away while workers struggle), the idea historically at least had some coherence. Industrial titans like J.D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie took profits from their firms, however troubled their origins, and generally channeled them toward the disadvantaged and afflicted, funding public libraries, museums and disease research among other socially useful projects. The rich, in other words, idiosyncratically and undemocratically, gave to the poor.<\/p>\n

In our new Gilded Age<\/a>, however, even this arrangement seems like a golden vision from a picture-book past.<\/p>\n

Stephen Schwarzman, the private equity tycoon who cofounded the Blackstone Group, is the face of a new kind of philanthropy. To borrow the language of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, he has \u201cinnovated\u201d<\/a> novel ways in which the rich can give back to themselves, cementing and heightening their power while claiming they\u2019re doing the rest of us a favor. Ostensibly charitable ventures need no longer benefit the disadvantaged at all; they just need to be marketed that way.<\/p>\n

In the late \u201990s, even before he amassed much of his $6.5 billion<\/a> fortune, Schwarzman conducted an early trial of this idea at his alma mater Yale, proposing a $17 million donation in exchange for renaming the freshman dining hall for him. The offer was ultimately turned down<\/a> after Yale discovered it was actually \u201ca contribution to one of Blackstone\u2019s investment partnerships on Yale\u2019s behalf.\u201d The university wouldn\u2019t receive money until the fund was liquidated, essentially exposing it to a bet on the donation\u2019s ultimate size. Years later, Schwarzman found more success with a $100 million gift to the New York Public Library, but only after a dispute<\/a> over how many times his name would be engraved into its fa\u00c3\u00a7ade, another brand-building gambit that soured in the end.<\/p>\n

Still, these million-dollar overtures seem trivial in comparison to Schwarzman\u2019s latest and largest philanthropic project, a postgraduate China scholarship aptly titled the \u201cSchwarzman Scholars\u201d<\/a> program. Based at Beijing\u2019s Tsinghua University, the initiative will offer 10,000 students over the next 50 years the opportunity to enroll in an all-expenses-paid master\u2019s program designed to<\/a> \u201crival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence.\u201d At $300 million\u2013including $100 million of Schwarzman\u2019s own money\u2013the program\u2019s endowment is already slated to far outstrip the $203 million Rhodes fund.<\/p>\n

The scholarship has attracted an impressive roster<\/a> of backers, counting Ivy League presidents, business executives, former heads of state, and other powerful names among its many advisors and funders. Adding his endorsement alongside two former secretaries of state, current Secretary John Kerry lauded the program as \u201ca terrific one,\u201d thanking Schwarzman for his \u201cvision and commitment\u201d in a video address<\/a> filmed specially for the website. Yale president Richard Levin, echoing a common theme among the endorsers, gushed: \u201cThe U.S.-China relationship has never been more important, which makes this program much needed and timely.\u201d Boeing\u2019s chairman, president and CEO W. James McNerney, Jr. threw in his company\u2019s support \u201cbecause it will help develop future leaders with global sensibilities and further strengthen the ties between our two countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be clear: the ties and relationships they\u2019re discussing here are business ones. Many of the Schwarzman scholarship\u2019s top donors have lucrative interests in China, where government regulators still retain extensive control over foreign companies\u2019 access to markets. As the New York Times notes<\/a>, Schwarzman\u2019s personal role will \u201craise his political profile in China,\u201d giving him and Blackstone \u201cincreased access to Chinese leaders.\u201d The second-biggest donor for the program is BP, among China\u2019s largest foreign investors<\/a>, with nearly $5 billion tied up in fossil fuel extraction and chemical processing plants. Other top donors<\/a> include Boeing (China is the second-largest aircraft market), Caterpillar (China is the world\u2019s top construction market), and an array of big banks seeking expanded access to China\u2019s state-owned financial sector.<\/p>\n

Republished from: AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There used to be a thing we called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153philanthropy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Even though the concept of corporate-funded charity has raised thorny ethical questions since its Gilded Age birth (asking, for example, why companies give money away while workers struggle), the idea historically at least had some coherence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}