Foundations and Collaboration

Abstract

Foundations are prime constructors of hegemony, by promoting consent and discouraging dissent against capitalist democracy. There is considerable collaboration among foundations and their networks of nonprofits; between philanthropic foundations and profitmaking corporations; and between the foundation world and government entities, local, state, national and international. We do not have to posit any secret conspiracies (although they may well exist). The proponents of “civil society” celebrate the erosion of boundaries, especially those between the public and private sectors, while “networks” consisting of funders and grassroots organizations enable the powerful to appear as just another participant. These developments, as Zbigniew Brzezinski has observed, “obscure asymmetries in power and influence.” Democratic institutions are quietly being supplanted by a “new feudalism.”