Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Philanthropy, he insists, is not an adequate counterbalance to inequality, and can act as a “fig leaf”. “I also don’t believe in this idea that the rich will save us,” he says. “I think we need to reclaim our democracy; arguably we live in a plutocracy”. Like philanthropy, taxation, too, is another fig leaf to foster the idea that private ownership is sacred and capitalists have accumulated wealth legitimately, and that the rich, or at least some of them, think of the nation and give their share. The reclusive rich

“I find it a remarkable irony, incidentally, that up to about the end of the Second World War, if not later, European (or Christian) civilization was triumphantly declared to be the creator of the modern world but that now, confronted with a menacing future, it is more common to hear people talk about humanity’s self-destruction – as though the peasants and working classes of the world had the same responsibility for that future as the industrialists, politicians, military careerists, bankers, and arms manufacturers.” — British anthropologist Talal Asad