From the commanding heights of Wealth Bondage (the utilitarian worldview held in common by business, governments of all nations, and many large NGOs), the grassroots nonprofit sector (the Citizen Sector) sprawls as an unruly, ill managed, voluntaristic hotbed of people getting things done without being managed from above by docile experts, reporting to Managers, reporting to Executives, accountable to Flows of Funds and those who control them. The nonprofit sector produces citizens (a quaint term popular as feudalism in Europe and America was upended in revolution), actively engaged in their community, learning how to manage and govern themselves. Whereas what we need more of is less personal and political liberty, fraternity, autonomy, and equality, and more freedom for employers and Masters of Business Administration, their Executive Managers, and Social Investors, to tell us what, when, how often, as well as how. We need less social contract or compact and more legally enforceable commericial contracts in all walks of life. We need less commonwealth and commonweal and common good. We need more outputs and outcomes, more units of production, commensurate with investment expended. Money Well Spent as these distinguished men say.
Everyone wants to get results. Everyone wants freedom. I would settle for a good job and a good boss, wouldn't you? Then maybe someday I can be the boss, or at least a strategic grantmaker, and others will have to kiss my boots. That is justice enough for me. I guess I can't blame my boss and generous patron for being sadistic, when I would just love to revenge myself some day too. "I want results!" God, I would love to bellow that down the hall someday myself, as I stride through with my clipboard and stopwatch. Start every day with jumping jacks while I call the cadence. That is freedom. Yes, clothes are allowed, if I say so. Our investors will be consulted in the viewing area behind the peephole. I will let you know what the dress code will be for my supervisory inspections. What fun. Mary, chin up! Back straight! Show me some enthusiasm. Ah, if only. For now I must truckle and whinge. Tommorrow, I will be the master of minions, if only I am a good enough minion myself.
I hope you are not my boss when you finally ascend to those giddy heights of power. Although, if you maintain your belief in philanthropy, perhaps you won't be so bad after all...
Posted by: Liz At Must Have Gifts Corporate Philanthropy | July 20, 2012 at 09:44 AM
When I am your boss you will regret having written that comment.
Posted by: phil | July 20, 2012 at 01:58 PM
You will look out your window to see me standing in a field of commons, pointing out the way the field comes right up to and around and beneath the building you're in, defining its inside and outside, holding it aloft and apart.
I'll be weaving a hammock that will stretch from your windowsill to any one of the clouds drifting over the field.
And I'll wave, and you'll scowl, and I'll keep weaving...
Posted by: Christine Egger | July 20, 2012 at 04:52 PM
That sounds lovely, as long as I can own it all. The more work you do maintaining the commons, the more I can reap from it. We call this Cognitive Surplus. No one is making you! Presumably you get some kind of psychic income from it. Beats me.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | July 23, 2012 at 11:11 AM
No no, you misunderstood. I'm not working or maintaining. I'm standing and pointing and weaving and waving.
Posted by: Christine Egger | July 24, 2012 at 07:13 AM
Are you an heiress? I can't imagine how else you would pay your bills.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | July 24, 2012 at 08:44 AM
Selling those hammocks, I suppose.
Posted by: Curator | July 24, 2012 at 04:03 PM
If no one owns something can it be said to exist? Public Goods, God, Virtue, are these not words for outworn superstitions?
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | July 25, 2012 at 08:22 AM
I am not an heiress and I am not selling the hammocks.
I am considering taking steps that would require the government to take care of the field, using taxes to do so, but they broke their promise on a neighboring field (too tempting to parcel it off for a golf course and condo development) so to be honest with you my hopes are not that high.
Posted by: Christine Egger | July 25, 2012 at 09:32 PM
The government will create and regulate a commons? I was under the impression, that due to austerity, the commons were slated to be sold to campaign contributors at bargain prices, like internet spectrum and drilling rights.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | July 26, 2012 at 10:08 AM