On Mar 29, 2011, at 2:08 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> But you did not answer my argument - that right wingers were able to
> overcome the stifling effect of nonprofit culture and legal constraint
> son advocacy to a much greater degree than left wingers. It is
> difficult to blame the nonprofit culture for that difference - it must
> have something to do with left wingers themselves. Ravi had an
> excellent point that some of it is linked to the culture of
> individualism and celebrity cults that prevail in liberal and left
> circles. I would only add one more thing to it - most American
> liberals and lefties are not that radical after all - they are more
> happy with little pragmatic projects here and there than fundamentally
> changing the society. Those who seek radical changes are a tiny
> minority. That may provide a better explanation of the fragmented and
> minimalistic nature of left/liberal projects than the supposed effect
> of funding, which I think is quite small.
Your classification scheme is rather broad. The right-wing foundations are often funded by individuals with strong ideological agendas. Liberal foundations, like Ford and Carnegie, were endowed generations ago and are now run by professionals. They're anything but individualists. Few serious left wingers have any money to throw around. Soros is an interesting oddball in this gang - he's pretty "left" for a hedge fund guy, and controls the agenda of his philanthropies tightly. Consequently he'll do stuff like drug law reform and anti-incarceration research. He likes funding stuff that's unfashionable (which kind of fits with his investment philosophy). But most funders won't touch that stuff.
Look at the big green organizations. Grantmakers like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund pull a lot of their strings. Some years ago, my pal Ron Arnold, an interesting guy despite his rabid dislike of greens, got hold of the transcript of an Environmental Grantmakers Association meeting in which the Rock guy said explicitly that he wanted to control the movement's agenda. That agenda means cutting deals with corporations and pushing for market-friendly approaches like cap and trade. I can't imagine what that has to do with "individualism."
Doug