No Such Thing as a Free Gift

The charitable sector is one of the fastest-growing industries in the global economy. Nearly half of the more than 85,000 private foundations in the United States have come into being since the year 2000. Just under 5,000 more were established in 2011 alone. This deluge of philanthropy has helped create a world where billionaires wield more power over education policy, global agriculture, and global health than ever before. In No Such Thing as a Free Gift, author and academic Linsey McGoey puts this new golden age of philanthropy under the microscope-paying particular attention to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As large charitable organizations replace governments as the providers of social welfare, their largesse becomes suspect. The businesses fronting the money often create the very economic instability and inequality the foundations are purported to solve. We are entering an age when the ideals of social justice are dependent on the strained rectitude and questionable generosity of the mega-rich.

The charitable model represented by the Gates Foundation is failing to address the root causes of inequality and ecological crisis. This path-breaking book is a sorely needed, historically grounded investigation into the difference between philanthropy and justice., Fierce . provocatively examines the power imbalances and ambiguities of charitable giving . a clear-eyed and much-needed study., On both the left and the right, social critics sense that there is something deeply corrupt in the way we live now . With extraordinary insight and original investigation, Linsey McGoey understands how this twenty-first century mess was made. Her voice is reasoned and never shrill, her research is solid, and her courage is remarkable. Rather than spin far-fetched conspiracy theories, she simply shows what the oligarchs are doing in plain sight, which is frightening enough., McGoey correctly questions whether Big Government would, in fact, be more efficient than Big Philanthropy in addressing the rise of inequality., It's worth hearing what she has to say, because it's not said enough . we give too little scrutiny to people like Gates, and too much credence to the idea that philanthrocapitalism can 'save the world.'

Linsey McGoey is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Essex. She has been a member of the World Health Organization's expert steering group on the impact of a human rights-based approach to maternal and children's health. She has published reviews and op-eds for the Guardian, Spectator, Globe and Mail and Open Democracy.