Philanthropy and Plutocracy - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Filantropía y plutocracia

In response to Donald Trump’s presidency, and the broader conditions that
enabled it to happen, October has begun publishing historical and contemporary
documents related to cultural activism aimed at creating spaces of progressive
resistance to threats of authoritarianism and plutocracy (ver, por ejemplo, estado-
ments related to the J20 Art Strike in October 159). The texts that follow
demonstrate how theory can work hand in hand with praxis. Andrea Fraser’s
“Trusteeship in the Age of Trump” makes a strong association between philan-
thropy and political power as wielded by a small elite of the super-wealthy. Ella
demonstrates how the privatization of social services and the arts that philanthropy
achieves is part of a larger withdrawal of government responsibility for the welfare
of its citizens that Trump’s administration has enthusiastically embraced.
Accompanying her lecture is an open letter, drafted by Fraser and Eric Golo Stone
and signed by dozens of art-world figures, demanding the resignation of Treasury
Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin from the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art
(MoCA), Los Angeles. The authors’ introduction to this letter makes it clear that
Mnuchin, who resigned from the board before the letter was released to the press,
pursued values in his business dealings that were diametrically opposed to those
that animate the mission of MoCA. As Fraser declares in her “Remarks”: “We must
send the message to art collectors and museum trustees that supporting modern
and contemporary art and its institutions must mean more than giving donations
of money or art. It must also mean defending the values and structures that
enabled modernist and avant-garde culture to develop and thrive . . ."

David Joselit

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oCToBER

TRuSTEEShIP In ThE AGE oF TRuMP1
Andrea Fraser

Since the late 1960s, the art field has seen waves of concern over the influ-
ence of trustees and patrons on museum programs and collections. unfortunately,
these concerns often ignore the broader structural conditions and consequences
of the uS system, which places responsibility for cultural institutions—and also
many educational and social-welfare functions—with philanthropic organizations.
These organizations are plutocratic in the most basic sense of the word: institu-
tions that are considered public and provide basic social functions, but are
governed by a minority of the wealthiest citizens according to their own interests,
with little or no democratic input or oversight. Like political plutocracies, ellos
tend to exist as closed, self-perpetuating systems of privilege, access, and influence.
En efecto, the American philanthropy sector itself is the product of policies put into
place in past eras of American plutocracy: the late-nineteenth-century Gilded Age,
when Andrew Carnegie spread his “Gospel of Wealth,” and the 1920s, when art
collector, philanthropist, and treasury secretary Andrew Mellon institutionalized
the charitable deduction on income taxes while slashing top tax rates to spur eco-
nomic growth and philanthropy—initiating a financial frenzy that came to an
abrupt end with the Great Depression. Mellon’s philosophy returned with the
neoliberal economic policies pursued aggressively in the united States since the
1980s, leading to our most recent gilded age, museum boom, recession, and levels
of economic inequality and wealth concentration not seen since the 1920s.

Politically, plutocracy thrives on a vicious cycle of economic inequality. alto
levels of wealth concentration buy access, influencia, and authority, which are used
to secure policies and establish practices that protect and increase that wealth,
which in turn is used to buy more influence, and so on and so on, undermining
democracy. In America, philanthropy not only serves to justify extreme concentra-
tions of wealth and legitimize its influence but contributes to inequality directly by
creating a vicious cycle of tax revenues lost to tax deductions and rate cuts, leading
to cuts in public spending, leading to increased demands for private philanthropy
to make up for the social spending lost, leading to calls for more tax incentives to
increase charitable contributions, leading to further reductions of tax revenues
and public spending, and so on and so on.

With the inauguration of Donald Trump and the confirmation of his cabinet,
the united States has become a “really existing” plutocracy, led by ultra-wealthy

1.
This text originated as a speech written to launch an “American Friends of”–type organiza-
tion founded by the Museum Ludwig Cologne with my encouragement (I serve on the museum’s
board). The full text can be found as “Remarks for the Launch of the International Society of the
Museum Ludwig Cologne” in Yilmaz Dziewior, ed., We Call It Ludwig: The Museum Is Turning 40!,
(Cologne: Museum Ludwig and Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2017), páginas. 318–30. Este
adapted excerpt was first prepared for the program “More Is never Enough with A. l. Steiner,” pre-
sented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, chicago, on February 8, 2017.

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Filantropía y plutocracia

people with few qualifications for government. sin embargo, social scientists have estab-
lished that America became a plutocracy long before Trump was elected
president.2 over half of all contributions to the recent presidential campaign came
from just three hundred and fifty American families and their companies—the vast
majority backing conservative candidates who champion policies that would protect
their wealth and the profitability of their businesses by cutting taxes and eliminat-
ing financial, environmental, consumer, and labor regulations.3

Many of those families also have members who sit on museum boards. As an
article in Forbes put it, the “real plutocrats” not only “make Presidents [y] defeat
or pass special legislation” but also “build hospitals, museum wings, endow univer-
ciudades, libraries, music halls and more,” thus “overshadowing” (or making up for?)
the “corruption of the political process” with “philanthropy . . . and support of
good works.”4 In the American model, sin embargo, one can say that philanthropy
itself always has been a corruption of the political process: It is part of a system in
which public resources (eso es, foregone tax revenues) are channeled to privately
controlled organizations that operate free of public accountability and oversight—
a system that, despite the billions poured into art, education, health care, y
other “good works,” has served to perpetuate and legitimize the extreme inequal-
ity that underlies so many of the social problems philanthropic organizations
would alleviate.

It is likely that art-museum trustees who make political contributions are
more likely to contribute to progressive than conservative candidates and organiza-
ciones. sin embargo, there are still many museum trustees and art collectors who have
provided financial support for politicians who would rob people of freedom and
dignity because of their origin, religious faith, or sexual orientation, who have
preached hate and threatened censorship, and who have worked to restrict voting
rights. There are even museum trustees who have supported Trump directly. uno
of Trump’s most prominent supporters, the finance chairman of his campaign
and now his treasury secretary, Steven T. Mnuchin, stepped down from the board
of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, only after concerted pressure
from the art community.

I doubt that many patrons of contemporary art personally subscribe to the
Islamophobic, homophobic, anti-immigrant, misogynist, and racist positions and
policies advocated by the politicians they sometimes support. nevertheless, muchos

See Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Página,

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites,
2.
Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,
81; Martin Gilens,
Affluence & Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America (Princeton: Princeton university
Prensa, 2012).

Perspectives on Politics, 12(3) (2014), páginas. 564

–

“

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3.
Presidential Election,

nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen, and Karen Yourish,
New York Times, october 10, 2015.

The Families Funding the 2016

“

Robert Lenzner,

4.
Tomorrow,
with-affluence-have-all-the-influence-in-america/#2748579b3b6d.

We Are Becoming a Plutocracy no Matter What obama Proposes
Enero 26, 2014, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2014/01/26/those-

“

oCToBER

do appear willing to overlook such attacks on democratic, civil, and human rights
because these politicians further their professional and financial interests. To a
very large extent, artists, curators, and museum directors similarly have been will-
ing to overlook the political and economic agendas of art patrons because those
patrons further their own professional and financial interests or the specific inter-
ests of their institutions.

The time has come for that to change. With the rise of plutocrats and oli-
garchs who mobilize nationalism and preach hate to secure consent to corrupt
governance and who are intent on undermining whatever stands in their way—
including democratic institutions and elections, ciencia, and even the most basic
criteria of verifiable fact—we have to recognize that there is much more at stake
than funding our shows and acquisitions.

We must send the message to art collectors and museum trustees that sup-
porting modern and contemporary art and its institutions now must mean more
than giving donations of money or art. It also must mean defending the values and
structures that enabled modernist and avant-garde culture to develop and thrive
and that enable universities and museums to teach, estudiar, and present that culture
with autonomy and integrity. It means defending these principles not just in the
artistic field but in political and economic fields as well.

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Filantropía y plutocracia

ThE CASE oF STEVE MnuChIn
Andrea Fraser and Eric Golo Stone

Steven T. Mnuchin joined the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art,
Los Angeles, in December 2009. The son of art dealer Robert Mnuchin, Steven
Mnuchin spent seventeen years at Goldman Sachs before establishing his own
hedge fund, Dune Capital Management, with Daniel neidich in 2004. En 2009, el
same year he joined MoCA’s board, he took advantage of the subprime-mortgage
crisis by assembling a group of investors to purchase the residential lender
IndyMac from the FDIC at a 20 percent discount. The FDIC also agreed to cover
all the bank’s loan losses over the first 20 percent.5 Renamed oneWest, the lender
bought up other failing banks and pursued foreclosure practices so aggressive that
Mnuchin was later dubbed the “foreclosure king.” According to the California
Reinvestment Coalition, oneWest foreclosed on more than thirty-six thousand
homeowners, concentrated in communities of color. The bank accounted for 39
percent of all foreclosures on federally insured reverse mortgages, products target-
ing homeowners over the age of sixty-two, despite servicing only 17 percent of that
market.6 oneWest was sold to the CIT Group in 2015, earning Mnuchin an esti-
acoplado $380 million in sale proceeds and dividends. Soon after the sale, the uS Department of housing and urban Development opened an investigation into the bank’s foreclosure practices.7 Following the sale of oneWest, Mnuchin began financing film production. In April 2016, Mnuchin became the finance chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Rather than build a fund-raising apparatus from scratch (since the Trump campaign had none), Mnuchin made a deal with the Republican national Committee to outsource fund-raising in exchange for a per- centage of the take.8 he also leveraged his hedge fund and Goldman Sachs connections to bring in big-money donors, enabling the Trump campaign to com- pete with hillary Clinton’s enormously successful fund-raising machine.9 “F.D.I.C. Closes Sale of IndyMac,” “Dealbook,” New York Times, Marzo 20, 2009, https://deal- 5. book.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/fdic-closes-sale-of-indymac-to-onewest/?_r=0; Zachary Mider, “nominating Mnuchin for Treasury Will Dredge up Mortgage Meltdown Controversies,” Bloomberg, november 21, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/trump-treasury-con- tender-mnuchin-found-profits-in-mortgage-mess. California Reinvestment Coalition, “California Reinvestment Coalition Responds to Steve 6. Mnuchin’s Likely nomination for Treasury Secretary,” calreinvest.com, november 30, 2016, http://www.calreinvest.org/news/california-reinvestment-coalition-responds-to-steve-mnuchins-likely- nomination-for-treasury-secretary. 7. Zachary Mider and Saleha Mohsin, “Trump’s Treasury Pick has a $230 Million Blemish on
his Record,” Bloomberg, December 13, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-
13/mnuchin-s-reverse-mortgage-woes-blemish-record-of-treasury-pick.

8.
Max Abelson and Zachary Mider, “Trump’s Top Fundraiser Eyes the Deal of a Lifetime,"
Bloomberg, Agosto 31, 2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-31/steven-mnuchin-
businessweek.

9.
Matthew Goldstein and Alexandra Stevenson, “Trump’s Treasury Pick Moves in Secretive
hedge Fund Circles,” New York Times, December 19, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/
business/dealbook/steven-mnuchin-trump-treasury-hedge-funds.html.

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oCToBER

Soon after Mnuchin joined the Trump campaign, members of the Los
Angeles art community, including some with close ties to MoCA, began urging
the museum to remove him from the board. These efforts intensified after
Election Day, with a petition online and leafletting in front of the museum. En
late november, we drafted an open letter to MoCA demanding that Mnuchin be
removed from the board. on December 1, we began circulating the letter to col-
lect signatures. MoCA senior staff were aware that we planned to release the letter
to the press the following day. on the morning of December 2, before the letter
was released, we were notified by the museum that Mnuchin had stepped down
from the board and that his name had been removed from its website. en
December 3, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mnuchin had left the MoCA
board, as well as the boards of the CIT Group and Sears holdings, citing “new
workload as the reason for his resignation.”

Mnuchin is not unique among trustees of major museums in joining the
Trump campaign or in serving his administration. MoCA’s board also includes
Carla Sands and Steven A. cohen. Sands was an active fund-raiser for Trump,
served on his economic advisory committee, and contributed $100,000 to his inauguration.10 Cohen contributed $1,000,000 to Trump’s inauguration. cohen
also sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in new York, together with
Larry Fink, who served on Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum until it dis-
banded in the wake of Trump’s defense of neo-nazi demonstrators in
Charlottesville. (Fink did not resign or publicly criticize Trump prior to the dis-
banding of the forum.) henry Kravis, the husband of MoMA president
Marie-Josée Kravis, also contributed $1,000,000 to Trump’s inauguration. Kenneth Griffin, who serves on the boards of the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Art Institute of Chicago, gave $100,000.11
Mnuchin stood next to Trump during the August 15, 2017, press confer-
ence at which Trump defended neo-nazis, and he continued to stand by Trump
while other advisors from the business world resigned in protest. Defending
Trump in response to a call to resign as treasury secretary signed by over three
hundred members of his Yale class of 1985, Mnuchin made it clear that, for him,
the financial goals of tax cuts and deregulation outweighed the threat of far-
right bigotry, antisemitismo, and authoritarianism.12

The open letter to MoCA is reprinted here with the signatures collected in the
brief twenty-four hours it was in circulation. While demanding action by MoCA on

10.
Imogen Rose-Smith, “From Socialite to Donald Trump Adviser: The Rise of Carla Sands,"
Institutional Investor, Septiembre 6, 2016, http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3582970/asset-
management-hedge-funds-and-alternatives/from-socialite-to-donald-trump-adviser-the-rise-of-carla-
sands.html#/.WZssTbQ7P4o.

11.
Abril 20, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/steve-cohen-1m-trump-donation-930890.

Eileen Kinsella, “Which Art World Figures Funded Donald Trump’s Inauguration?,” Artnet,

12.
Violence,” New York Times, Agosto 20, 2017.

Maggie haberman, “Steven Mnuchin Defends Trump’s Reaction to Charlottesville

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Filantropía y plutocracia

Mnuchin’s board membership, it also aimed to mobilize the broader art commu-
nity, including artists and curators on the MoCA board and staff with whom we
share its principles. We hope that reprinting the letter here will support continu-
ing efforts to challenge the trusteeship of patrons who support art institutions
financially while also supporting politicians who undermine the values on which
those institutions depend.

An oPEn LETTER To ThE MuSEuM oF ConTEMPoRARY ART, LoS AnGELES,
FRoM MEMBERS oF ThE ART CoMMunITY

December 1, 2016

Dear Museum of Contemporary Art:

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, defines its mission as that of
“identifying and presenting the most significant and challenging art of our time.”
It has presented groundbreaking exhibitions of art that explore and challenge
racism, sexism, heterosexism, xenophobia, and nationalism. With the support of
the diverse Los Angeles art community, MoCA has weathered its own financial and
institutional challenges.

Hoy, our national arts community is being challenged. En efecto, it is fac-
ing a dire threat. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the
freedom of speech on which artistic expression depends. he has vilified journal-
ismo, even encouraging supporters to attack journalists physically. he has ranted
against the cast of Hamilton for speaking out from the stage, while remaining
silent on neo-nazis celebrating his election win. he has threatened to jail people
who desecrate the American flag, demonstrating either ignorance or disregard
of the uS Constitution and Supreme Court. he has disparaged and denigrated
women, immigrants, people of color, and the differently abled, and has shown
intolerance of difference of all kinds. he has consistently identified the other as
threatening, promising mass deportation, faith-based registries, and walls
around our country. The policies advocated by Donald Trump and his support-
ers not only are antithetical to what the Museum of Contemporary Art
represents, but also directly threaten cultural producers and the very existence
of free expression—which the museum was founded to support and on which
the museum itself depends.

We find it incomprehensible and unacceptable that the finance chair of
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and nominee for treasury secretary sits on
MoCA’s board of trustees. Steven T. Mnuchin’s prominent and active support for
Donald Trump and his policies renders him unfit to serve as an officer of an art

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oCToBER

institution whose mission those policies threaten. We the undersigned demand
that MoCA immediately ask Mr. Mnuchin to step down from the MoCA board.

As cultural producers, we must insist that the claims for justice we make in
our work be reflected in our institutions. We must not allow our work and insti-
tutions to be used to legitimize Donald Trump, his supporters, their extremist
políticas, or the intolerance and violence they promulgate.

Sincerely,

Rhea Anastas

Mark Dion

Jeff Khonsary

Fred Moten

Tracy Jeanne

Edgar Arceneaux

Roy Dowell

Barbara Kruger

Carlos Motta

Rosenthal

George Baker

Sam Durant

Suzanne Lacy

nikhil Murthy

Yuval Sharon

Judie Bamber

Shannon Ebner

Luisa Lawler

Steven nelson

Jason Simon

Scott Benzel

Andrea Fraser

Pamela Lee

Silke otto-Knapp

Frances Stark

Jenn Bolande

Charles Gaines

Zoe Leonard

Laura owens

A. l. Steiner

Tom Burr

Liz Glynn

Simon Leung

hirsch Perlman

Eric Golo Stone

Luis Camnitzer

Ruth Estévez Gomez

Monica Majoli

Renée Petropoulos

Joanna Swan

Phil Chang

Todd Gray

Anthony McCall

Adrian Piper

Catherine Taft

howie Chen

Wade Guyton

Allan McCollum

Lari Pittman

Diana Thater

Tyler Coburn

hans haacke

Rodney McMillian

Vanessa Place

Erika Vogt

Erin Cosgrove

Karl haendel

Kate Mcnamara

Ana Prvacki

noura Wedell

Douglas Crimp

EJ hill

Kimberli Meyer

R. h. Quaytman

Carmen Winant

Moyra Davey

Michael ned holte

John Miller

Cameron Roland

Bruce Yonemoto

Leslie Dick

Adrià Julià

Ragen Moss

Aura Rosenberg

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