The New Gilded Age (2022)

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2022

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Philanthropic foundations are a fundamental part of our society: they support media, the arts, education, medical research, and more. NPR, and even this show, is supported by many personal and family foundations. But it wasn't always that way. In this episode, we go back to the beginning — the Gilded Age. We trace the birth and evolution of what many today call "big philanthropy," and ask what all this private wealth means for the public good.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I am quite literally from another age.
0:07.4	The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos, Switzerland, 2019, an exclusive event
0:14.3	where the world's richest and most powerful people get together to solve the world's problems.
0:19.9	I was there when David Ettermbrough was showing his new film.
0:25.4	The garden of Eden is no more.
0:29.2	Beautiful, absolutely beautiful stunning footage of how we're wrecking the planet.
0:34.9	And people were literally crying while we were seeing it.
0:38.5	And I was thinking, but guys, you arrived here in your private yet.
0:47.4	We can solve this, but we need leadership.
0:51.5	Well, innovation is what changed the rules.
0:54.3	It's the thing that I'm most interested in.
0:57.1	What do you see businesses roll in combating inequality?
1:01.8	I think business has a huge role to play in battling the issues that we're going to be talking about today.
1:07.0	And I want to thank the World Economic Forum for providing leadership.
1:13.2	Those were the voices of former vice president Al Gore, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates,
1:18.5	and investor Robert Moritz speaking at the 2019 Davos meeting.
1:23.4	These are some of the types of guys and yes, the vast majority of attendance are men that go to Davos.
1:28.9	And they're there for a cause.
1:30.8	It's not like they're just talking.
1:32.8	Maybe that's what's horrifying and disturbing about it.
1:35.9	If only it would be a conspiracy.
1:38.0	You could just roll that up and go there and expose the selfish people.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.