Bill & Melinda Want You: Gates Foundation tentacles reach worldwide and next door

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is in the news again. It’s the lead donor for a program that will spend millions of dollars producing and delivering drugs for the treatment of tropical diseases. It’s pumping another $750 million into the Global Fund. And it’s opening a new museum, dedicated to itself, in downtown Seattle.

Bill Gates is supposed to be living proof that not all billionaires are bad; that a huge pile of money in one place can sometimes be a good thing if it's being used for a good cause. You'll hear lefties go out of their way to praise Gates for his philanthropic work, almost as if they need to make the point that they're not biased against the rich per se. [1]

Gates has gained his status through the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). BMGF is one of the largest private foundations in the world and has rapidly become a heavyweight in the arenas such as public health, agriculture, and education. It claims 957 employees and pays out $2.6 billion in grants each year.

The Foundation has some big achievements under its belt. It takes some credit for the recent declaration of polio’s eradication in India. It helped GlaxoSmithKline to create a “moderately effective” malaria vaccine. A recent study concluded that Avahan, a BMGF project in India designed to limit the spread of HIV, had prevented over a hundred thousand infections during a five-year period. All together, the Foundation seems to have amassed an unassailable record of saving the world.

What’s The Catch?

An increasingly mainstream critique of the Foundation accuses it of “magic bullet” thinking: the idea that a single technological innovation can fix a social problem without addressing any contextual issues. A somewhat less mainstream critique includes the idea that the “contextual” problems themselves are actually fundamental problems—associated with the global capitalist economic system from which the BMGF springs and which it actively works to maintain.

In the world of public health, the BMGF makes its main contribution through the medical techniques developed by American and European pharmaceutical companies. It buys drugs from the companies, and it also pays the companies to develop new drugs—over which they retain intellectual property rights.

A meticulously well-researched report from the LA Times explains why the Foundation’s work might be counterproductive on the first level. Its focus on high-profile HIV prevention actually drains attention, funding, and doctors away from more essential work and smaller clinics. Meanwhile, flooding poor countries with cheap or free pharmaceuticals may work for a little while; but when these supplies dry up, there are no generics or sustainable health alternatives in the area. “When the free drugs are gone, patients die.”

All the while, the BMGF benefits from investing its money (tax free) in the same companies it pays for huge shipments of (overpriced) drugs. The product goes to Africa and Asia, but the money stays in North America and Europe.

The Foundation has started a new project dealing with African farming, called the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). It’s become clear that AGRA will push genetically-modified crops onto African farmers, using a first wave of free seeds as a wedge to make farmers dependent on seeds which they’ll then have to buy. At this point, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the BMGF bought $27.6 million worth of shares in Monsanto soon after launching the project. They’re planning to incorporate farmers into the Coca-Cola supply chain, for similar reasons. A whole consortium of African critics has warned that this plan will yield monocultures and dependency—yet the global forces behind the scenes won’t let it it stop.

How Bad Can They Be?

One doesn’t have to conclude, so far, that the Gates Foundation is simply “bad,” like a war or an oil spill. Yes, this money is made off the sweat of workers at Foxconn, a company famous for driving its employees to suicide. This is money made by ruthlessly opposing the right to create and share free software. This is monopoly money. But Gates might have grabbed all the loot then spent it on liquor and golf. So isn’t this Foundation at least a move in the right direction?

Although Microsoft and Gates are particularly notorious, we must remember that they are parts of a larger system. The BMGF is a public relations wonder, not just for Gates, but for the whole of capitalism, harnessing global frontiers for propaganda even as it installs systems of domination. Gates money pours into so many different institutions it’s difficult to keep track of where its influence might appear. And it becomes difficult to sort out the unbiased journalism when you consider the fact that Gates tentacles have achieved historically unprecedented penetration of the reputable media. “Policy and advocacy” aren’t just a part of what the Foundation does; they’re it’s single-biggest item.

We’re talking millions of dollars each to ABC, BBC, PRI, and NPR. We’re talking about donations to so many publications—such as Health Affairs, Global Health Magazine, and LinkTV—that you’d be hard-pressed to find reliable sources of information about public health that weren’t somehow on the Gates dime. The BMGF also sponsors researchers that publish articles in the New York Times, major science journals, and the Huffington Post. The Seattle Times [2], reporting on the Gates Foundation echo chamber, quoted Marc Cooper, a journalism professor at the University of Southern California:

Cooper, the journalism professor, finds it "laughable" when media claim Gates money doesn't influence their coverage. Every grant comes with at least one string attached, he said: the hope that the grant will be renewed. Recipients can be reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.

Indeed, few of the news organizations that get Gates money have produced any critical coverage of foundation programs.

Wrote Timothy Ogden of Philanthropy Action: “it is increasingly difficult for anyone to speak truth to power at the Gates Foundation. We were surprised at the number of people who responded to our requests for submissions with some version  of ‘I’d love to talk about that, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to comment publicly.’”

All of this soft influence in the media complements the reports which the Foundation directly commissions. These include the Davos-generated New Vision for Agriculture, a document which speaks of the need to incorporate the world’s poor into global food markets—controlled by companies like Monsanto and Coca-Cola. Or even like the Lancet article cited above for the success of the Foundation’s HIV work in India. It’s paid for by BMGF, but it shows up in a reputable journal, which is then covered by all the other outlets.

Behind the scenes, BMGF has a lot of strings to pull. It uses contacts in the US government and in international institutions. It cashes in on its reputation as one of the world’s sexiest charities. And, of course, it multiplies its own capital without taxes or scrutiny. It picks an area, such as public health, then turns it inside out, attacking it from every angle and using it to throw around money, alter whole economies, and generate positive press the whole time. The message isn’t just “Gates is Great”; it’s also “West is Best.”

From BMGF to BCPS

Well, Gates has also taken an interest in education. He wants to reform the school system, here in the US, by pushing evaluations and charter schools; and he intends to get his way. He’s interested in gathering all kinds of facts except of course those about poverty itself, a factor which BMGF studiously excludes from its analysis.

In November 2011, the Foundation made a $376,835 grant to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative lobbying group notorious for sponsorship by the Koch brothers. ALEC pushes for a privatized educational system, famously including fully online schools that prepare children better than ever to become members of the cognitariat. These include Connections Academy, a for-profit company, based in Baltimore, that offers the youth an alternative to learning in person with teachers and classmates. [3] ALEC’s goal is to chip away at the public educational system which serves all and makes no profit, and to reinforce a private system that stratifies our society and squeezes out dollars.

Baltimore City has already received received $100,000 for “collaboration” between public schools and charter schools—in exchange for which it signed on to a document called “District-charter collaborative compact.” This compact contains few references to Baltimore itself and fewer mentions of the teachers who work in the schools. There is no plan for involving parents or communities in this massive change the educational system. Yet one of the “commitments” in the contract requires the closure of “low-performing” schools. [4] Charter schools would be allowed to take advantages of economical bulk purchases for the main system, but would not have to share burdens such as large class sizes. The compact increases burdens on the city itself while mandating that the city reduce its regulations for the charter schools. [5]

This rapid shifting of power toward charter schools mimics the competitive atmosphere of software markets under the hegemony of Microsoft. The Sun quotes Diane Ravich, a professor of education at NYU: “instead of communities pulling together and coalescing around their schools, they fall apart because they are competing with one another." [6] The author of the article notes that although there was a great deal of dissent from the system’s pro-charter policy, there was no one willing to voice it; the city school workers were afraid of being punished for their dissent. Yes, some of these charter schools can post high test scores, but it’s because they’re willing to let weaker students drop out and end up in the increasingly neglected city schools! Self-segregation takes care of the rest. The mentality is: instead of improving this school for everybody, let’s build a new unit for a small few while the rejects fall deeper into their hole.

The Foundation puts a smiling face on neoliberalism while its activities sacrifice our most basic public resources to the ravages of competition for profit. It consolidates the power of the powerful, further removing them from the front lines which continue to be exploited. The top rules the world while the middle competes for positions in their technocracy. The bottom of the totem pole is no longer a class, it’s a disaster area. And those inside are not people, but a volatile raw material.

When the Gates Foundation throws around millions of dollars, coercing smaller organizations into obedience with little more than the threat of taking these dollars away, it performs a brazen dramatization of the system as a whole. And, although it serves a purpose as propaganda for that system—who would have thought that the people could hate the rich but love the richest man?—it increasingly makes the whole operation more visible. We have a choice: we can continue to jump for the (genetically-modified) carrots they dangle above our heads, or we can turn away from scarcity and seek a world of our own.

NOTES:

[1] See: An unusual—almost eerie—level of positivity in a recent thread on Reddit.

[2] Receiving only $15,000 in Gates money.

[3] It should come as no surprise that ALEC specifically opposes assistance for the education of especially poor children.

[4] As determined by a “Policy Workgroup” composed of administrators and charter school operators.

[5] “In support of the joint commitments made in this compact, City Schools will: [...]

Remove obstacles and barriers in system wide policy and operational guidance
documents (directives to principals) that hinder the success of individual public
charter schools; or which impede the potential of a charter school to implement its
mission and vision.”

[6] All due credit to the inestimable Baltimore Brew for noting both of these articles and highlighting the Ravich quote!