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Against Philanthropy - YouTube
Channel: The School of Life
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our society really admires it when rich
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people give away huge piles of surplus
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money towards the end of their lives
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particularly when they donate large sums
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of it to the Arts it seems so noble and
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so good what nice capitalists they are
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how grateful we should be to have them
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in our midst
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in recognition sometimes these rich
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donors have a gallery named after them
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where their masterpieces hang dinners
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are given in their honor and the odd
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title may be thrown their way
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take this big capitalists who made lots
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of money in construction now he's given
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lots of it to preserve beautiful bits of
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ceramic in elegant glass cases this
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combination of a money-making life an
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artistic philanthropy follows in the
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footsteps of great plutocrats like
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Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick or
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Andrew Mellon they made money in
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so-called low areas of the economy like
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coal maile railways abbatoirs and
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packing factories areas where you
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squeeze costs as tightly as you can and
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are always looking to reduce benefits as
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much as possible however once the
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money's in the bank these rich people
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wholeheartedly turn their attention to
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higher causes among which art and all
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that it celebrates kindness beauty and
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tenderness looms are specially large we
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suggest a different path people should
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stop being good in the way they
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distribute their money they should try
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to be good in the way they make it it's
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simply absurd to ignore goodness for
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many decades while pulling together an
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astonishing fortune and then later in
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life suddenly to rediscover one's
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conscience by an act of immense
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generosity toward some localized little
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shrine of art like an opera house or a
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museum would it not be better and truer
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to the values underlying many works of
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art to strive throughout the course of
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one's life especially within the money
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generating day job to make kindness
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tenderness sympathy and beauty more
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alive and more real in the world
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tantalizingly and tragically the
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difference between goodness and cruelty
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and most businesses is a few percentage
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points of profit that's the difference
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between paying your workforce well and
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abusing them between producing products
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that are shoddy in products at a decent
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for the sake of just a tiny bit of
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surplus wealth wealth that isn't
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strictly even needed human life is daily
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being degraded and sacrificed would it
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not be more humane if rich business
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people agree to sacrifice a little of
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their surplus wealth in their main area
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of activity and in the most vigorous
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period of their lives in order to render
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the workplace more noble and humane and
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then bothered less with dazzling
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displays of artistic philanthropy in
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their later
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what we're asking for is enlightened
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investment where a lower return is
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sought on capital in the name of
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kindness and goodness there would be
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less fancy art at the end of it but the
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values within works of art would be far
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more widely spread across the earth part
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of the reason why the present system
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survives has to do with the way status
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is offered this is a key part of the
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jigsaw Wow and we ignore it at our peril
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the rich currently get a huge amount of
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status from making big philanthropic
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donations to the arts however they would
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get no respect if they claim to be
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limiting their wealth making potential
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by running their businesses in ways that
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made daily life slightly nicer for
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employees in society there is more
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status to be found in exploiting mines
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rainforests and call centres with
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ruthless abandon for three decades and
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then your animal energies have run run
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dry putting on a black tie jacket and
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funding an opera house or Museum of
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seventeenth-century still lives from the
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proceeds this strategy has to it a
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glamour of far greater than the
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infinitely more humane and therefore in
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a deep sense artistic task of steadily
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building a more agreeable world for
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people at a modest three percent annual
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rate of return which at the end of life
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leaves you a little except for the
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inherent satisfaction of having done
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something worthwhile with your years
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enlightened capitalism requires new
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kinds of patrons interested in making
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money but willing to sacrifice returns
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for the sake of higher goals the art is
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surely a lovely thing but even more
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valuable are the sort of things that the
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works of art we love celebrate kindness
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empathy goodness beauty at the end of
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the day it seems far better to have
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these qualities in our offices and
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factories than to add yet another museum
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or masterpiece to the nation's
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collection it's far closer to the real
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spirit of art to run a factory that's
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attractive to be kind to workers
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and to treat colleagues well rather than
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bully fight and exploit for a lifetime
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and then give a Renoir to the National
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Gallery in one's last year's don't buy
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the picture and give it to the nation
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try to make the sweetness and kindness
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in the picture more possible in
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day-to-day life
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for example by giving workers more time
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off to be with their families that's
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better than philanthropy it's true
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decency
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you
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you
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