Philanthrocapitalism and crimes of the powerful [Le philanthrocapitalisme et les « crimes des dominants »]

Over the past decade, a new generation of philanthropic donors have taken to labelling their corporate practices ‘philanthropic’ even when their investments are for-profit in nature and explicitly bring direct financial benefits to donors – often at the expense of the recipients of philanthropic ‘gifts.’ Novel philanthropic trends subsumed under the term ‘philanthrocapitalism’ have led to calls for an end to the for-profit versus non-profit distinction when it comes to giving practices, insisting that money directed at for-profit recipients can be more ‘effective’ than grants to traditional, non-profit bodies. Today’s philanthrocapitalists sometimes cite Adam Smith’s discussion of the ‘invisible hand’ to defend their approach to charitable giving. But they deliberately ignore Smith’s writing on state’s vital role in distributing wealth and regulating criminal activity, as well as his views on why economic inequality is harmful for nations. Drawing parallels to work in criminology on ‘crimes of the powerful,’ we explore, firstly, how today’s wealth elites profit personally from a reconfiguration of the long-standing distinction between for-profit and non-profit grant recipients. Secondly, we draw on concepts from ignorance studies in order to theorize how and why elite actors whose actions often harm the general public have managed to successfully uphold self-serving strategies as publicly beneficial.