Giving with one hand...

When York author Fiona Shaw wrote her first novel, The Sweetest Thing – a love story set against the background of the chocolate factories in York at around the turn of the century (19^th to 20^th) – one of the reviews suggested that her plot was unrealistic, because it featured a Quaker chocolate manufacturer who was also a philanthropist, and who used industrial espionage. This, wrote the reviewer, would never happen. But Fiona (who is a trustee of the Rowntree Society, a small charity which I chair) had in part based the character on Joseph Rowntree. There is ample evidence to suggest that JR did indeed use industrial espionage to keep Rowntree’s ahead of the game in cocoa and sweet manufacturing; and of course his record as a philanthropist, progressive employer and Quaker needs no elucidation to readers of this blog.

What, you will be wondering, has brought this on? Well, the other day at the Royal Academy From Russia exhibition, I was gazing at the wonderful picture of Tolstoy, and the voice in my headphones pointed out that he too was a bundle of contradictions – dressing like a peasant during the day and being waited on by servants in the evening, promoting the benefits of celibacy while…oh, you can imagine the next bit.

And of course the same applies to many of the great philanthropists. I got into a bit of trouble (see foot of 1st column on 13th page) a year or two back when, speaking about Andrew Carnegie at an event organised by the Carnegie UK Trust, I hinted that Carnegie had been a brutal employer. The same is true for that great philanthropist of the art world, Henry Clay Frick, who, acting on instructions from Carnegie, had his Pinkerton guards shoot strikers dead (I have a small interest in Frick – the man who tried and failed to murder him, Alexander Berkman, may just have been an ancestor).

Does it matter, when they give with one hand and take with the other? We all have inconsistencies in our lives; we present a face to the world which may not be exactly the one we present to those closest to us, or the one we see in the mirror in the morning. But, yes, I think inconsistencies on this scale do matter, and are at least worthy of critical appraisal. I don’t feel that Joseph Rowntree did much harm by his use of industrial espionage, and the good he did is in no way undermined by it; he might have argued that he was only enabled to do what he did by ensuring the commercial success to which the espionage contributed. But I’m not at all happy to wander round the magnificent Frick Collection near Central Park without recollecting how it came to be there. You (well, I, anyway) can’t just gloss over a conflict in character as sharp as that between a killer, and a collector and donor of great art.

Of course, Frick is an extreme example. But perhaps a little more critical scrutiny would be in order when the next contemporary billionaire businessman is feted because of his decision to give serious money to charitable causes. This takes us neatly back to the Mike Edwards book on philanthrocapitalism mentioned in my last posting. In her comments on it, Caroline Hartnell, writing for OpenDemocracy, said:

But more than anything, the underlying values are in conflict: philanthrocapitalism is a product of individuals making large personal fortunes. The very wealthy can wield enormous power in society, through their philanthropy as well as their economic activities. But social justice demands greater equality between people in terms of possessions and power. And the limits of the hard-pressed earth we live in mean that if everyone is to have enough, many may have to be content with less. How much transformation of the world that has made philanthrocapitalists so rich can they be expected to support?