The Tenuous Place of Big Philanthropy in America'S Social Contract

credit: Flickr

Sohrab Ahmari's new book, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty and What to Do About It, isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of free enterprise.

In fact, the co-founder and editor of Compact magazine says in a press release that the book is "not comprehensive by any means."

But that doesn't mean he's done with his criticism of big, private philanthropy.

In fact, he says in a New York Times op-ed that it's time to start looking at philanthropy in a different way.

"Big philanthropy is not subject to any serious 'countervailing power' from other market participants," Ahmari writes.

"Their power hasn’t been subject to any real democratic counter pressure from policymakers, either, since the time of the 1969 Tax Reform Act."

In fact, big, private philanthropy is "tax-incentivized and has always occupied a nebulous position in the American polity neither fully public nor pristinely private in its legal structure or self-understanding, much less among the citizenry," Ahmari writes.

He argues that big, private philanthropy uses the state's coercive power for its own benefit, and he calls for a more participatory, democratic, and tax-in

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