Philanthrocapitalism_ How Giving Can Save the World - Matthew Bishop [80]
Individuals with ideas and skills but without a lot of money can also organize public goods markets. After my 2006 Global Initiative, Amos Olagunju wrote me to say he would use his professional training to build water supplies and help extend power to poor villages in his native Nigeria. Sergey Zhabin wrote to say he intended to link U.S. hospitals to specific hospitals in Africa to provide mentoring, surplus supplies, and equipment. A woman who identified herself only as Mary said she would organize her community to set up Parent Stress Lines, staffed by trained volunteers, to help families having a hard time coping with loss, separation, poverty, and abuse. In different ways, all these people are increasing the public good by bringing order to an area of need where it did not exist before.
The gift of a larger, better-organized public goods market, more accessible to consumers, whether given by a business leader like Lee Scott or Jeff Immelt, innovative labor unions and public pension fund investors, an advocate like Amory Lovins, a worker-friendly NGO like Global Fairness, or a brilliant social entrepreneur like Ira Magaziner, can do a world of good. In doing so, they give everyone else the opportunity to participate, by changing the way you consume energy and buy products, or by giving you the chance to increase the impact of a donation of time, skills, or money.
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What About Government?
NO BOOK ABOUT public service by private citizens would be complete without recognizing the essential role of government—its laws, regulations, programs, and grants—in advancing the common good and the importance of citizen activism in securing good government. Good economic policies can enhance business and job creation, decrease inequality of incomes, ensure the benefits of free and fair trade, and accelerate the development of new technologies. Social Security checks are the difference between living above or below the poverty line for almost half of America’s senior citizens. Medicare and Medicaid cover the health-care costs of tens of millions of Americans who otherwise could not afford them. Almost 60 percent of the new drugs in the last decade were developed through government-funded research at our national laboratories or universities. The quality of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink is far better than it would be without government regulations. Without government oversight, our workplaces would be less safe, our stock and commodities markets less honest and transparent, and our travel more hazardous. We depend on government to finance the education of more than 90 percent of our children through high school and the higher education offered at public colleges and universities. We need government to maintain our national parks and protect priceless natural treasures; to keep our streets safe; to guarantee the civil rights of racial minorities, the disabled, and others; and, of course, to maintain our national security by protecting us from enemies and making a world with more partners and fewer enemies.
Just during my eight years as president, 35 million Americans used the Family and Medical Leave Act when a baby was born or a family member was sick; 43 million more citizens breathed air that met federal standards; 40 million more had access to safer drinking water; 85 million Americans in federally funded health plans got the protection of the Patients’ Bill of Rights; 10 million more students received college aid; more than 2 million children were lifted out of poverty through the doubling of the earned income tax credit; for the first time, 90 percent of young children were immunized against serious diseases; 58 million acres of our national forests were protected under the Roadless Rule; and more than 1 million felons, fugitives, and stalkers were denied the ability to buy a handgun under the Brady