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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThomas Frank on Hillary Clinton, The Clinton Foundation, and How Microloans help Banks over the Poor
Hillary Clinton, liberal virtue, and the cult of the micro loan
Thomas Frank
Harper's Magazine
What was most attractive about microlending was what it was not, what it made unnecessary: any sort of collective action by poor people coming together in governments or unions. The international development community now knew that such institutions had no real role in human prosperity. Instead, we were to understand poverty in the familiar terms of entrepreneurship and individual merit, as though the hard work of millions of single, unconnected peopleplus cell phones, bank accounts, and a little capitalwas what was required to remedy the Third Worlds vast problems. Millions of people would sell one another baskets they had made, or coal they had dug out of the trash heap, and suddenly they were entrepreneurs, racing to the top. The key to development was not doing something to limit the grasp of Western banks, in other words; it was extending Western banking methods to encompass every last individual on earth.
Microlending is a perfect expression of Clintonism, since it brings together wealthy financial interests with rhetoric that sounds outrageously idealistic. Microlending permits all manner of networking, posturing, and profit taking among the lenders while doing nothing to change actual power relationsthe ultimate win-win.
Nearly every country where microlending has been an important development strategy for the past few decades, Bateman writes, is now a disaster zone of indebtedness and economic backwardness. When he tells us that the increasing dominance of the microfinance model in developing countries is causally associated with their progressive deindustrialization and infantilization, he is being polite. The terrible implication of the facts he has uncovered is that microlending achieves the opposite of development. Even Soviet-style Communism, with its frequently mocked Five Year Plans, worked better than this strategy does, as Bateman shows in a tragic look at microloan-saturated Bosnia.
And at the apex of all this idealism stands the Clinton Foundation, a veritable market-maker in the worlds vast, swirling virtue trade. The former president who runs the whole show is the worlds leading philanthropic dealmaker, according to a book on the subject. Under his watchful eye, all the concerned parties are brought together: the moral superstars, the billionaires, and of course the professionals, who organize, intone, and advise. Virtue changes hands. Good causes are funded. Compassion is radiated and absorbed.
Thomas Frank
Harper's Magazine
What was most attractive about microlending was what it was not, what it made unnecessary: any sort of collective action by poor people coming together in governments or unions. The international development community now knew that such institutions had no real role in human prosperity. Instead, we were to understand poverty in the familiar terms of entrepreneurship and individual merit, as though the hard work of millions of single, unconnected peopleplus cell phones, bank accounts, and a little capitalwas what was required to remedy the Third Worlds vast problems. Millions of people would sell one another baskets they had made, or coal they had dug out of the trash heap, and suddenly they were entrepreneurs, racing to the top. The key to development was not doing something to limit the grasp of Western banks, in other words; it was extending Western banking methods to encompass every last individual on earth.
Microlending is a perfect expression of Clintonism, since it brings together wealthy financial interests with rhetoric that sounds outrageously idealistic. Microlending permits all manner of networking, posturing, and profit taking among the lenders while doing nothing to change actual power relationsthe ultimate win-win.
Nearly every country where microlending has been an important development strategy for the past few decades, Bateman writes, is now a disaster zone of indebtedness and economic backwardness. When he tells us that the increasing dominance of the microfinance model in developing countries is causally associated with their progressive deindustrialization and infantilization, he is being polite. The terrible implication of the facts he has uncovered is that microlending achieves the opposite of development. Even Soviet-style Communism, with its frequently mocked Five Year Plans, worked better than this strategy does, as Bateman shows in a tragic look at microloan-saturated Bosnia.
And at the apex of all this idealism stands the Clinton Foundation, a veritable market-maker in the worlds vast, swirling virtue trade. The former president who runs the whole show is the worlds leading philanthropic dealmaker, according to a book on the subject. Under his watchful eye, all the concerned parties are brought together: the moral superstars, the billionaires, and of course the professionals, who organize, intone, and advise. Virtue changes hands. Good causes are funded. Compassion is radiated and absorbed.
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Thomas Frank on Hillary Clinton, The Clinton Foundation, and How Microloans help Banks over the Poor (Original Post)
portlander23
Jun 2016
OP
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,669 posts)1. Wow. A real eye-opener.
And he's right: Hillary's brand of feminism is about more women getting to be CEOs, and not about helping poor and working class women.
Beowulf
(761 posts)2. Read his whole book, Listen, Liberal.
Brilliant critique of neoliberalism and the "New Democrats."
choie
(4,111 posts)3. Agreed - the article is quite illuminating..
snot
(10,520 posts)4. K&R'd & Bookmarked.
Extremely interesting.
Can't help but wonder what a compare-and-contrast analysis between the Clinton Foundation and the Carter Foundation might reveal, in terms of donors, methods, and results.