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My bigger issue is the slight whiff of... dare I say it? Privilege? Look, don’t get me wrong. Publicising good causes and helping people direct their charity c
by jbreckmckye 8y ago
My bigger issue is the slight whiff of... dare I say it? Privilege?
Look, don’t get me wrong. Publicising good causes and helping people direct their charity can do no harm. I won’t criticise that. But instructing your readers to do economics PhDs, or join an investment bank, or take an internship at a thinktank, is assuming they enjoy some enormous opportunities.
Most people cannot do those things, not even if they went to Oxford. They cannot do an MBA or live on the subsistence wages of the modern academic. Like most human beings in the history of civilisation they can only choose how to be instruments of power and capital, which often means doing things only indirectly related to the public good.
- solveit 8y agoThey are aware of this, but focus on that small portion of the population anyway because the people that can go work at an investment bank provide a ridiculously disproportionate bang for their buck. Tangentially, I think you're underestimating what a typical Oxford grad can do. Most of them absolutely can do one of those things, especially if they decide to before they graduate.
- jbreckmckye 8y agoI went to Cambridge. No way could I have afforded an unpaid internship at a thinktank after I graduated. Possibly I could do it now, but even if I obtained that golden policy job - how would I survive in London? Housing here is more expensive than even San Francisco. My degree has opened many opportunities - sure. But I can't pay my rent with it.