I am grateful to Theodore Lechterman for his generous review of my book and for his suggestions about how its arguments might be refined, extended to other topics, and translated into more determinate policy guidance.
Lechterman notes, correctly, that my book provides limited guidance on “how to demarcate the line between public and private”: this is a question addressed much more comprehensively in his own theory (and in other recent works in political philosophy, e.g. Cordelli 2020). I do provide some broad guidelines: for example, on p. 80, I note that where outcomes do not have significant unchosen effects on other people, the case for democratic control over them is weakened. But Lechterman objects that we need more determinate principles for identifying public problems: “to know when and where democratic scrutiny is appropriate, we need some way of distinguishing matters of common concern from other matters.”
I understand Lechterman’s dissatisfaction, but I think that this gets it backwards. Whether something is a matter of common concern (and hence an appropriate target for democratization) is not a question that can be resolved prior to democratic scrutiny. To that extent, my argument is in the spirit of Jane Addams and her pragmatic conception of social progress. Whether something is a public problem cannot be answered independently of whether the relevant publics (including the people affected) perceive it to be a problem. Is the name above the door in an art gallery a matter of common concern? Plausibly not: those who don’t like it need not enter. If the name is Sackler and the year 2022, the answer may change: now, it is more plausible to see broader social and political relationships at stake in the ways that an institution honors its patrons. These are not questions that can be answered in the abstract, without considering the specific perspectives of the constituencies for whom these matters become (and who partly constitute these matters as) public problems.
This does leave open the possibility that, in some contexts, a public really might endorse or accept the philanthropic supply of some important goods. But this is a different scenario than the one that Lechterman considers. His worry is that, without an independent standard, we might need to conclude that the role of philanthropy in American democracy is already democratically legitimate: perhaps by declining to vote for “a greater state role in education, health care, or cultural preservation,” American citizens “are expressing that these matters (or significant aspects of them) are not in fact matters of common concern” (and are hence affirming the public role of philanthropy as not undemocratic). This conclusion would overlook important realities: significant communities affected by philanthropy in education, in health care, and in cultural institutions do express concerns about its role. This does not automatically condemn philanthropy as undemocratic. But—especially in light of democratic deficits in the political system—the concerns of such communities cannot be dismissed simply by pointing to putative authorizations of philanthropy’s role at the highest levels (national elections, or decisions by elected officials). We have reasons to favor more modular and direct attempts to address concentrations of control over outcomes that affect other people in common. Of course, this provides an indeterminate resolution for many important political debates. An important democratic concern about some philanthropy—especially in the form of large-scale, conditional or restricted giving—is the way that it truncates these debates, foreclosing in advance many options that relevant publics may wish to consider.
