Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, recently announced her intention to take on a new philanthropic endeavor by donating $640 million to charities. Of the $60 billion she received after separating from her husband, Scott has already donated more than $16 billion to various nonprofit organizations.
For most people, owning that kind of money, much less donating it, is unthinkable. Scott is certainly distributing funds with the intention of making the world a better place. The problem lies in the kind of world the organizations Scott supports are trying to build. The billionaire divorcée steadily pumps billions of cash into progressive nonprofit conglomerates, ensuring funding goes to influential organizations that will shape American opinion and policy. providing.
The network of progressive power extends far beyond the three branches of government.
Charity has not been a universal value throughout history, and the idea of giving to people outside of your immediate family is primarily Christian. Other religions, such as Islam, encourage giving to the poor, but in the West that tradition is tied to the teachings of Christ, not ancient Greece or Rome.
At one point, philanthropy was deeply personal. You made a donation directly to someone in need or to an organization such as a church in which you are actively involved. That gift was unique to your community and you knew the people it helped.
As society expanded and became more homogeneous, much of this work was taken over by large bureaucracies that were no longer responsible to specific individuals or communities. Those who would like to satisfy their Christian philanthropic impulses but cannot be bothered to participate in community with those in need, instead turn to third parties who will touch the unclean things for them. You could also donate.
This separation between the donor, the organization, and the community it serves has created a principal-agent problem. The principal-agent problem arises whenever a separate agent or group of agents is hired on your behalf, each with their own interests that have little to do with the task they were hired to perform. It’s for development. Anyone who has ever tried to resolve a problem by calling the customer service center of a large company will be aware of this phenomenon. As the number of bureaucratic layers increases, the ability of individual actors to take responsibility and achieve results decreases.
Because of the Christian ethos that remains in our society, charities are often treated as high-moral enterprises and are therefore endowed with significant social and financial capital, supporting individuals and communities. The power accumulated in these groups was usurped without direct accountability to society. . The intermediaries who control these organizations become increasingly unconcerned with the stated purpose of the organization, and instead become obsessed with expanding the power and size of the charity, which in turn leads to personal increased their power and importance.
For these executives, the best way to increase their prestige and influence was to align themselves with the political zeitgeist. By adopting a progressive political agenda, individual managers were able to outmaneuver their internal rivals in the struggle for power and make their organizations important nodes in the broader system.
By linking to the state, charities can become large beneficiaries of taxpayer funds when allies are in office, and personnel and policy havens when opponents win elections. Many conservatives realize that even if progressives are voted out of office, their policies will continue to advance on their own. This is because important institutions, such as nonprofits and universities, that the government has incorporated into the process and currently depend on to function remain in the hands of the left.
Many on the right now refer to the unelected federal bureaucracy as the “deep state,” but progressive power networks extend far beyond the three branches of government.
One advantage of these extragovernmental power centers is that nonprofit organizations can exercise power to circumvent constitutional limitations that apply only to formal government agencies.
As an example, when friends in government needed to push for censorship of conservatives on social media but were restricted by the First Amendment, progressive allies instead turned to nonprofit organizations. and non-profit organizations were able to apply pressure on their behalf. while maintaining a moral shield of charity.
That is why nonprofit charities have become an integral part of the regime, while maintaining the moral and legal protection afforded by their status. The artificial separation of public and private sectors established in the American consciousness also allowed the public and private sectors to act as arms of the state without constitutional restrictions.
This creates a general state. Administrators aggregate power across public and private institutions and network them to circumvent notions of limited government and checks and balances. The personal becomes political because all private institutions are instruments of oppressive state power. When you see Mackenzie Scott giving away $16 billion, she’s not giving it away to the poor. She’s giving it to the regime. She is pledging support throughout the state.
