Cancelled - The funnel economy and the new calculation debate

11 March 2020 - Coronavirus: update
All public events at the WZB have to be cancelled with immediate effect. This measure will be effective until 20 July 2020. It is based on today's decision by the Governing Mayor of Berlin to introduce a range of urgent measures for Berlin's research institutions to counter the further spread of the Corona-virus.

Linsey McGoey, University of Essex

In this lecture, widespread assumptions about the effectiveness of private-sector actors in helping to achieve global development goals will be subject to critical scrutiny. Starting with the ‘socialist calculation debate,’ a framework of ‘narrow’ versus ‘broad’ market ideology will be introduced to link the calculation debate to the growing trend of ‘philanthrocapitalism.’ I argue that today’s wealthiest philanthropists, and in particular Bill Gates, explicitly tried to improve upon the ‘narrow’ market fundamentalism of scholars such as Hayek and Friedman, but ended up worsening what will be termed the ‘funnel economy’. For-profit businesses are encouraged to become more involved with public services delivery, while failing to heed even Milton Friedman’s caveats about the need for democratic oversight of social businesses, leading to new forms of market authoritarianism.

Linsey McGoey is Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. An internationally recognized expert on philanthropy and a pioneer in the study of ignorance, she has written the books “The Unknowers” and “No Such Thing as a Free Gift,” and co-edited the Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies with Matthias Gross.

Moderated by Dieter Plehwe, Center for Civil Society Research

The lecture is part of the WZB lecture series “Great Crisis of Capitalism – A Second Great Transformation?”.