I build my theory by asking what role philanthropy might reasonably play in a more or less well-functioning democratic society. Emma Saunders-Hastings rightly questions whether or how this approach can offer guidance for contemporary democracies, which contain many dysfunctional features.
Saunders-Hastings questions whether countermajoritarian arguments for subsidizing philanthropy—which see philanthropy as a promising avenue for democratic minorities to realize their preferences for public goods—are appropriately responsive to contemporary conditions, where majoritarian rule is more often a legitimating myth than a reality. The significance of this problem depends partly on how sticky one thinks these democratic deficits are. Societies should not ordinarily abolish otherwise-justified laws in response to transitory defects, such as lack of political will. (And it is worth noting that virtually all established democracies have entrenched policies for subsidizing philanthropy, so the question is best understood as whether these policies should be abolished.) Similarly, we would likely not want to eliminate judicial review simply because, over the span of a few years, the judicial branch appeared to exercise its review powers with unreasonable vigor. In this case, we would need evidence of a more permanent power imbalance before the radical solution of suspending or abolishing judicial review could be justifiably contemplated. I think something similar might be said about philanthropic subsidies.
Importantly, the countermajoritarian argument is but one of several arguments I give for subsidizing philanthropy, which also include arguments for enriching a society’s cultural language and securing foundations of democratic deliberation. The second of these is especially relevant to contemporary conditions, where in many places the independence of civil society faces worsening threats from authoritarian predations. Indirect subsidies for philanthropy help to prevent the cooptation of civil society by government, which becomes particularly critical when governments consolidate power and menace citizens’ basic liberties. Moreover, because the particular version of the philanthropic subsidy that I defend is steeply progressive, it may help to reduce some of the very political inequalities that motivate Saunders-Hastings’s concern.
Saunders-Hastings also questions whether certain arguments I make for limiting philanthropy’s role under suitably ideal conditions actually yield the opposite advice under nonideal conditions. It is true that under generally antidemocratic conditions philanthropy may offer a more realistic prospect of delivering certain aspects of the democratic ideal than governments do. Indeed, I think that democratic requirements can devolve onto private actors when they operate in place of governments—a possibility that I have been exploring further in subsequent work. In the absence of appropriate democratic regulation, powerful philanthropic agents may reasonably respond to legitimacy concerns by incorporating democratic elements into their decision-making, such as providing effective opportunities for those affected by their decisions to enjoy input and oversight. But it is equally important that this inheritance of democratic responsibilities remains self-consciously temporary and does not divert progress toward the primary ideal of a democratic society.
Saunders-Hastings questions whether the democratic division of labor that I defend can succeed without specifying a more substantive theory of justice than I do. I agree that we would need a more fully worked out theory of the decent social minimum (which I consider an essentially collective democratic responsibility) to make the book’s arguments operationalizable. And I would not favor marking off entire sectors (such as health or education) as philanthropic red zones, precisely for the reasons that Saunders-Hastings notes. Instead, my arguments favor a more contextual approach that assesses individual health or educational services against their relationship to basic rights. Though I do explicitly allow for the possibility of exceptions to the ideal division of labor, it is hard to specify the precise conditions of these exceptions in the abstract. What my book does offer is general principles for guiding debates about these difficult questions—and several others.
I am deeply grateful to Emma Saunders-Hastings for her incisive yet charitable critique.
