I read an article recently in Catalyst on the phenomenon of ‘NGOism.’ Here’s the basic idea: NGOs and other non-profit organizations tend to increase the influence of the private sector on social welfare systems. In addition, the internal logic of NGO orgs (501c3 status, funding methods, et al.) prevent them from seriously challenging the capitalist system. It also pushes them toward endorsing technocratic approaches to problems and prevents them from treating politics as the playing out of conflicts over class interests.
There’s not a lot here that’s new. NGOism sounds pretty familiar. People have criticized them many times along these linkes. And we know some of the other problems related to NGOism: low pay in the sector, and so on.
But after reading the article, I thought about local implications. Here’s one way NGOism plays out in my city. I serve on our city Housing and Community Development Commission. Among other tasks, we award lots of money to NGOs and non-profits.
NGOism and the Local
The agencies themselves are great. The people who work for the groups we fund want to do good in the world. They serve lots of members of the public, particularly low-income people and other people in need. I think a few of them try to resist the kinds of institutional pressures the system foists on them. Some even succeed at times.
But here’s how the system works out in practice. My city outsources the providing of basic services to institutions shielded from genuine, participatory democracy and extremely limited by their institutional structures, fundraising capacities, regulatory requirements, and so on.
My city will never eliminate poverty or its main effects with this system. Nor will it create a democratic, participatory system this way. Cities don’t do these things by outsourcing their public services. Instead, they should move as far as possible toward public housing, public utilities, and as many public services as possible. They should get the people they serve directly involved in running the services.
Agencies do great work – especially given their limits and the size of the needs – but private, non-profit agencies were never the right solution to the size of the problem.
