Introduction
Philanthrocapitalism, particularly in the US, will soon
dominate the landscape of global health and
development, where private actors fund their own
initiatives, without enforceable accountability
mechanisms, ethical decision-making by qualified
experts or transparency in general (Edwards, 2009).
Accordingly, research shows that international
institutions such as the WHO and World Bank have
decreasing say in determining global development goals,
arguably due to inadequate financial resources, while
private institutions exhibiting white saviour complexes
hold increasing political power to exert self-serving
influence through manipulation of global institutions
(Edwards, 2009). However, there is insufficient research
linking philanthrocapitalism to its root causes and posing
solutions to its increasingly insidious influence. Thus,
this essay seeks to fill that gap by forming a critical
analysis of the phenomenon of philanthrocapitalism
within the landscape of a neocolonial, capitalist global
economy. This essay will first define
philanthrocapitalism and present successful examples of
philanthropy, before criticising the orientalist narrative
through which these schemes are publicly portrayed and
the omission of underlying unethical practices. This
essays connects philanthrocapitalism to the white saviour
industrial complex and highlights the self-perpetuating
nature of white saviourism.
Furthermore, this essay explores Marx’s theories on the
origins on capitalism, criticising unjust knowledge
production surrounding the Western colonial narrative
and historical disregard of women’s roles in social
reproduction. This essay then introduces two key players
in the philanthrocapitalist industry: the Rockefeller
Foundation and its role in manipulating American
medical education, research and practice, and the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation and its focus on technological solutionism over sustainable social reform, such as
genetically modified crops in Africa. Finally, this essay
frames philanthrocapitalism as a product of unequal
accumulation of wealth, and thus proposes ethical
arguments in favour of a redistribution of wealth, through
Peter Singer’s utilitarian approach, Thomas Pogge’s
argument regarding negative duty and the Marxist
understanding of the “species-being” (Wiedel, 2016)
This essay also offers a unique Islamic perspective, based
on the Islamic values of acting beneficently and
promoting social justice through the replacement of an
interest-based economy with an equity-based economy
whilst acknowledging the limitations in establishing this
over a globally diverse population under no obligation to
act Islamically.
Philanthrocapitalism
The term philanthrocapitalism has been defined as “the
application of modern business techniques to giving but
also the effort by a new generation of entrepreneurial
philanthropists and business leaders to drive social and
environmental progress” (Bishop, 2013, p. 474).
According to SEN (2015), philanthropy depicts a desire
to shift the responsibility of global development from
public to private institutions, due to states neglecting
their population’s basic needs (usually due to austerity
measures) and the idea that private institutions are better
able to meet these needs through philanthropy. Bishop
(2013) provides examples of successful philanthropic
efforts, like Andrew Carnegie building libraries across
the US and other countries, as well as the Gates
Foundation funding research to alleviate the burden of
diseases in the developing world. However, the paper
fails to actually provide evidence on how people
benefited from these schemes. The phrase “diseases of
the developing world” perpetuates the orientalist view
that people in the developing world experience exotic,
rare diseases that are different from the West and require Western cures and interventions. Additionally, the
narrow focus on diseases like malaria seems shortsighted,
when money could be invested into more sustainable
interventions such as healthcare system strengthening or
non-communicable disease prevention. Overall,
Bishop’s paper aligns with the stereotypical narrative
defining Western philanthropy that focus on the
generosity of the wealthy, as opposed to trying to
dismantle the power imbalances that cause developing
countries to be financially dependent on Western aid and
philanthrocapitalism in the first place.
The Lancet (2009) encouraged the Gates Foundation to
form a grant award plan that accurately depicts the global
burden of disease, so that funds can be allocated
accordingly, and to invest in both healthcare system
strengthening and research capacity in LMICs. However,
these somewhat naïve proposals don’t take into account
the fundamental nature of philanthrocapitalism: “the
super-rich need to stay super-rich in order for their
charitable enterprises to functions” and thus pursuing
sustainable interventions that decrease a country’s future
need for ongoing philanthropy would not be in the favour
of the Gates Foundation or any similar institution (SEN,
2015, p. 23). Conveniently, the fact that foundations
protect large amounts of wealth from taxation is rarely
mentioned either.
In light of the above, it is clear that philanthrocapitalists
are predominantly wealthy white males whose schemes
expose their orientalist views. Expanding on this, I argue
that the SEN’s (2015) use of the phrase “giving back” is
ironic since accumulations of wealth held by
philanthrocapitalists largely depend on overexploitation
of resources and labour from underdeveloped nations,
usually in the Global South, and also ongoing local
processes that perpetuate racial and social disparities.
Furthermore, these schemes often involve unethical
practices that are purposefully hidden from the public eye
due to biased media output, including environmental
pollution through poisonous chemicals and pesticides,
forced labour and child labour as well as disgraceful
working conditions such as sweatshops (Teubner, 2006).
In the next section, I will introduce the concept of white
saviourism as a way to frame philanthrocapitalism.
The White Saviour Complex
Finnegan (2022) writes how white saviours tend to be
wealthy white people who present themselves and their
philanthropy as altruistic. While altruism may be a
sincere motivator of philanthropy, performative altruism
does not dismantle the existing racial hierarchy or power imbalance, and ultimately functions to reproduce the
same methods of production as capitalism. The white
saviour industrial complex benefits from racial injustice
and structural violence, such as large disparities in
earnings, which contribute to the increasing racial
income gap – thus the white saviour complex is self
perpetuating and upheld by these injustices (Finnegan,
2022). With disparities in earnings being easier to
quantify, this leaves unquantifiable racial injustices
obscured in existing research. This includes effects of
generational trauma, disparities in the criminal justice
system, biased media reporting, unchallenged stereotypes
in the public and private sector and a failure to recognise
how the white upper-class members still benefit from
ongoing neocolonialism (United Nations, 2023). These
factors likely contribute to the overall ease with which
white upper-class people can accumulate wealth, whilst
denying the same opportunities to people of colour.
Using an intersectional feminist framework, which
analyses how overlapping layers of oppression converge,
black people are more likely to suffer from
marginalisation, oppression or discrimination on account
of wealth, housing, citizenship, skin colour, race, class
and ethnicity (Patricia Hill Collins, 2012). Despite
intersectionality lacking a defined methodology and
focusing almost exclusively on the experiences of black
women in the US, it is still useful in understanding how
multiple synergistic layers of violence and oppression
contribute to socioeconomic disparities and inequality for
black people in general (Patricia Hill Collins, 2012)
(Nash, 2008) . All in all, the white saviour complex
derives itself from the domination and superiority
complex of the white race, whilst upholding the
stereotype that African people are uncivilised,
underdeveloped and in need of saving by Western NGOs.
This is without acknowledging the colonial legacy and
history of exploitation, genocide and violations of human
rights that caused underdeveloped (or overexploited)
nations in the first place, since narrative control is a key
hallmark of the white savour complex (Manji, 2019).
Thus, white saviourism is an accurate method through
which to frame philanthrocapitalists.
The Origins of Capitalism
To investigate the origins of philanthrocapitalism, it is
necessary to address the origins of capitalism, and how
this led to extremely unequal distributions of wealth in
today’s society. It is predominantly white upper-class
males in the West who hold massive accumulations of
wealth, and therefore they are more likely to pursue
philanthrocapitalist ventures, exhibiting white saviour
complexes and manipulating international institutions through political power. According to Marx’s theory on
capitalism’s origins, primitive accumulation and
centralisation of capital were key processes. Primitive
accumulation of resources and capital was heavily
dependent on “the exchange of unequal values, thus of
swindling or usury… and not distinguished… from
pillage pure and simple” (Batou, 2015, p. 15). This
occurred alongside centralisation of capital, where
peripheral areas were drained of resources such as land,
fish and tools. These processes often occurred through
violence, such as the systemic genocides of non
European populations and deportation of Africans to be
used in the slave trade (Batou, 2015). Accumulation by
dispossession occurred at the expense of funding social
welfare institutions such as education, healthcare and
accessible transport (Angelis, 2000). The use of slavery
and wage labour exploitation in the peripheries allowed
for a major transfer of raw materials to the centres of
capital, largely to local upper class members (Moyo and
Yeros, 2011). Since these processes continue today
under neocolonial projects, this largely sets the stage for
today’s philanthrocapitalist scene, dominated by the same
demographic of wealthy white males exhibiting
orientalist views characteristic of the white saviour
complex.
One criticism regarding historical literature of capitalism
is the lack of explicit and adequate mention of the role
women played in social reproduction and unpaid,
informal labour. This continues to be an issue in current
White Feminist movements, where women are
empowered to work and contribute to the economy as
equally as men, yet men are rarely counselled to equally
share in social reproduction (Forrest, 1998). The
deliberate silence regarding women’s roles throughout
colonial history paves the way for women’s unpaid
labour in household chores and childcare to continually
go unrecognised, which is pivotal to the capitalist modes
of production and further disparities in accumulation of
wealth (Forrest, 1998).
Epistemological Injustice in the Production of Knowledge Shaping Narratives on Capitalism and Colonialism
In keeping with the Western narrative of superiority and
dominance of the white race, literature downplays the
violence and immorality carried out by the West in
history. Epistemological injustice refers to making the
dominant side’s perspective more prominent (i.e. the
West) in mainstream knowledge while obscuring and
delegitimising knowledge from the opposing side (i.e. previously colonised countries) (Bainton and McDougall,
2021). Feminist theory criticises this by arguing that
knowledge production, including whose perspectives are
included or erased, reinforces power inequalities and
patterns of marginalisation (Townsend and Niraula,
2016). This includes Western historical analyses of
colonialism who fail to focus adequately on how
exploitative practices affected the lives of people in
colonies, contributing to the disregard in Western
scholarship for how Western attitudes interact with
current world events such as neocolonialism and
structural racism. Critical reflexivity, derived from
feminist ethics of care, calls on researchers to situate
themselves within the sociopolitical context of their
research, such that power imbalances, social hierarchies
and racism that underpin epistemological injustice can be
made evident (Sultana, 2007).
Overall, while academic research focuses on being value
neutral and objective, this overlooks the overarching
point that such injustices should objectively not happen
again. Slavery, genocide and on-going exploitation of
indigenous populations and their resources ought to be
called out as unethical and abusive in academic literature.
As such, efforts should be made to encourage more
inclusive scholarship which equally value different sites
of knowledge production. This is however rare to
observe in existing literature, as previously alluded to.
Therefore, due to a lack of criticism and condemnation of
Western exploitative practices in literary culture, people
are largely unaware of how systems of inequality and
injustice still target people of colour, and remain unaware
of how these processes underpin white saviour culture
and philanthrocapitalism.
The Role of the rockefeller Foundation in Racial and Gendered Medical injustice
In mainstream academia, the role that the Rockefeller
Foundation played in the founding of modern medicine
and medical education is depicted as remarkable and a
sign of extreme generosity. The Rockefeller Foundation
is described as representing the “unity of aim and the
coordination and material stimulus and support which
[were considered] essential to the highest achievement in
research” (Markowitz and Rosner, 1973, p. 20). This
raises the question – what knowledge did John
Rockefeller, the owner of the Standard Oil Company
have that qualified him to centralise and monopolise
medical practice, education and research in the US? In
reality, the Rockefeller Foundation exerted control over
the type of research conducted in other institutes, and whether the research was published or not depended on
the judgement of a jury who represented the Rockefeller
Foundation’s interests (Markowitz and Rosner, 1973).
As such, American medical research was made to
exclusively reflect the interests of a small number of
powerful men working for the Rockefeller Foundation.
This included the trivialisation of natural cures and
homeopathy, and a focus into patented drugs largely
produced by Big Pharma (Sujatha and Abraham, 2009).
In 1914, $500,000 was donated to Yale University on
the condition that the school procure complete teaching
and medical control of the New Haven Hospital [a public
hospital]” – as such, the Rockefeller Foundation exerted
their manipulative influence over medical practice in the
US (Markowitz and Rosner, 1973, p. 22). While
resources and funds were channelled into a few elite
medical schools and hospitals, medical educational
facilities for black people and for women became largely
underfunded (Markowitz and Rosner, 1973). This
mirrors previous patterns of centralisation and
accumulation of capital/ knowledge production by white
male social elites. Despite the fact that important
medical breakthroughs were enabled through the
Rockefeller Foundation, this could in part account for the
severe lack of research into women’s health and
reproductive conditions such as endometriosis and PCOS
that continue to affects women’s health outcomes,
however there is inadequate research to provide concrete
evidence for this. This could also explain why black
people are underrepresented in research studies despite
being disproportionately affected by illnesses, like
hypertension and chronic kidney disease (Striving for
Diversity in Research Studies, 2021). The Rockefeller
Foundation is a prime example of the white
complex, as exhibited through their perceived superiority
in knowledge and decision making. Moreover, the
Foundation shows how philanthrocapitalism serves only
to benefit selfish pursuits of the donor and can have
devastating and far-reaching implications in increasing
racial and gender disparities in health outcomes.
Technological Solutionism: the Case of Genetically Modified Crops
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a non-profit
private foundation that was formed 24 years ago, with an
endowment of just short of $70 million (Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, 2022). Substantial financial funds
allow the Foundation to exert a disproportionately large
influence over the goals of global health, with an
overwhelming focus on technological solutionism (Burja 2022). Technological solutionism refers to the design
and production of technology (largely in the West) used
to “solve” issues such as malaria or poverty in Africa,
without addressing the wider sociopolitical and economic
context these issues are situated in and perpetuated by,
and without adequate input and informed consent from
those on whom the technology is arguably forcibly
imposed.
American writer Evgeny Morozov writes that
“solutionism presumes rather than investigates the
problems it is trying to solve, reaching for the answer
before the questions have been fully asked” and reduces
our ability to be morally and ethically reflexive, since
technology is framed as the ultimate solution as opposed
to one tool in the arsenal that should be continually
revised and improved upon (Morozov, 2013, p. 6). As
evidenced further ahead, there in fact appears to be
absolutely no consideration of ethics or morality in the
Foundation’s schemes, in which charity and profit appear
to be one and the same thing, as is characteristic of
philanthrocapitalism. The Foundation are the second
largest donors of WHO (after the US), yet these
donations are largely ear-marked to finance malaria,
tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS eradication research (Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, n.d.). As such, these funds ae
given to pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, GSK,
Novartis and Bayer HealthCare, many of whose positions
are occupied by Foundation staff members (Martens and
Seitz, 2015). Put simply, much of the funds allegedly
dedicated for philanthropic purposes, end up back in the
hands of the Foundation as opposed to helping those in
need.
The Foundation has dedicated over $170 million towards
research into genetic modification, as a technique to
allegedly improve outcomes for African farmers and
attempt to “empower millions of people to lift themselves
out of poverty” (Rock et al., 2023, p. 1-2) This language
implies that African people are responsible for their own
poverty, without addressing social or environmental
factors such as inadequate pay, climate change or lack of
access to basic infrastructure such as water and
healthcare. Crops can be genetically modified such that
they produce greater quantities of yield with qualities like
disease, drought and insect resistance or nutritional
enhancement (Rock et al., 2023). However, these
projects often operate with top-down governance to
prioritise the donor’s interests, with little input from
African farmers or scientists (Rock et al., 2023).
Furthermore, with technology production largely
concentrated in the West, patents over genetic
modification and gene editing are predominantly held by Western institutions, which restricts access to African
scientists. This is in spite of research evidence being
largely drawn from the African continent, mirroring
colonialist patterns of extracting resources and labour
from Global South in order to benefit the Global North
(Rakotonarivo and Andriamihaja, 2023). Research
showed that genetically modified crops were 5 to 10
times more expensive than the original crops (Fischer,
2021). The detrimental effects on the livelihoods of
those selling non-modified crops were not studied, while
wider environmental concerns regarding impacts on
ecosystems and agroecology were largely ignored
(Deutsche Welle, 2022). The ethical and health
implications of GM crops that are a staple part of a
massive population’s diet are rarely mentioned either
this prompts the question: who actually benefits from
GM crops? Forcing African farmers and African markets
to increase sales of GM patented seeds as opposed to
traditional resources thus appears to be yet another
neocolonial, white saviour complex-exhibiting project
seeking to increase Africa’s dependence on Western
technology, primarily benefitting Western
pharmaceutical and research institutions. The Gate’s
Foundation clearly exhibits paternalistic, culturally
superior attitudes in their approaches to philanthropy,
while failing to empower the people they allegedly aim to
help.
Ethical Arguments in Favour of Acting to End Poverty
Philanthrocapitalist organisations, as evidenced above,
often act unethically, manipulating international
institutions like the WHO for self-serving interests. This
undermines global efforts to reduce poverty and incr
global health. One theory on reducing the growing
influence of philanthrocapitalism is to work towards a
redistribution of wealth. Here I will summarise an
ethical argument in favour of supporting this theory.
Drawing from Peter Singer’s (1972) ut
approach, the average person in the West, relative to the
average person in poverty, has such an excess in wealth
that a relatively small donation would massively help an
individual person in poverty – as such, the average
person has a moral duty to donate to worthy causes.
However, considering that the wealthiest 1% of the
global population hold 45% of total wealth, the potential
impact that their wealth can make on global poverty
makes it arguable that the responsibility lies almost
entirely in their hands and not the remaining 99% of the
population (Buchholz, 2022).
Philosopher Thomas Pogge (2005) argues that we have a
negative duty to stop (or at least decrease) our
contributions to global economic institutions or
companies which perpetuate global disparities through
neocolonial expansion, operating monopolies or
unethical, exploitative practices, otherwise we are
morally complicit in their crimes. In cases where such
information is obscured, I would add that we have a
moral duty to enquire about the ethics of the companies
with which we engage. Furthermore, according to
Weidel (2016), capitalist societies forces us to embrace
the unnatural ideology of “the rugged individual”, which
indoctrinates people to accept that they are independent
self-reliant beings and as such, their dignity is attached to
these values. Interacting with people in poverty
(increasingly common with social media) disgusts “the
rugged individual” as they are perceived to have no
dignity, and therefore we choose not
2016). Marx argues that this goes against our shared
human essence (our “species
fundamentally in connection with others through
empathy, dependency and need (Petrovic, 1963).
Although Weidel (2016) refers solely to d
with a person in poverty, I would extend this logic to
engaging with unethical institutions too. Therefore, to
help people in poverty whether directly or indirectly, as
opposed to turning a blind eye, is to embrace our
fundamental human nature and reject ideologies imposed
collectively on society through capitalism.
Since a significant majority of the global population
follow an organised religion, and moral values in
religious societies are heavily derived from religious
scripture, religious arguments in approaches to
economics and wealth are equally important to discuss.
Here I will discuss the Islamic view on wealth and the
Islamic Economic System.
The Prohibition of Usury in Islam
Since religion relies on an absolute divine accoun
and judgement mechanism, this is reflected in the
behavioural assumptions built into the Islamic Economic
System. In Islam, the absolute ownership of all things on
Earth belongs solely to God, which God has subjected to
mankind’s service on Earth, for which mankind will be
called to account. This is a motivation for acting
ethically (Ayyaz, 2010). The Quran states that: “In their
wealth they acknowledge the right of those who asked
and of those who could not” (Chapter 51: Verse 20)
this reflects the right of an Islamic society, including
skilled/ unskilled workmen, the supplier of capital and
the community as a whole, to shares in the wealth of those who own it (Ayyaz, 2010). Overall, Islamic
normative rules combine ethical responsibility with legal
responsibilities as derived from the Quran, such as the
prohibition of usury or interest (Qasaymeh, 2011). This
prohibition is made on the basis of usury conflicting with
the Islamic Principle of Distributive Equity and leading
to unjust accumulations of wealth: “Interest in any
amount acts in transferring wealth from the assetless
section of the population” (Visser and McIntosh, 1998)
(Choudhury and Malik, 1992, p. 51).
Prohibiting usury is not an exclusively Islamic
perspective – the Lutheran Council of 1515 interpreted
usury to be “when gain is sought to be acquired from the
use of a thing, not in itself fruitful (such as a flock or a
field) without labour, expense or risk on the part of the
lender,” and therefore usury is unearned income, while
Birnie (1952) reinforced the view that life without labour
is unnatural (Visser and McIntosh, 1998). Combining this
with Marx’s view that acting against our human-nature is
a sign of being a slave to capitalism (or being afflicted
with the unnatural ideology of “the rugged individual”),
this leads to the conclusion that usury is unnatural and
therefore immoral, both from a religious and a secular
perspective (Petrovic, 1963).
Implementing a Global Islamic Economic System
Following on from this, a global implementation of
interest-free Islamic Banking systems could provide the
mechanism for an equitable redistribution of wealth. The
systems are focused around two financially equitable
approaches: “mudarabah – a joint venture between the
bank and a ‘partner’ with both contributing to the capital
of the project and sharing the profit or loss, and
musharakah – in which all the capital for an investment
is provided by the bank in return for a predetermined
share of the profit or loss of the business undertaking”
(Hanif Basit et al., 2004, p. 37) (Kahn & Mirakhor,
1986). At first glance, it appears to be a disadvantage
that money-lending institutions can gain or lose capital
depending on the success of the project, especially in a
globalised economy where loans are often in the millions,
yet macroeconomic models based on Islamic Economics
predict that the rate of return of capital based on
Mudarabah investments is as equally viable in the long
term as rates of returns in credit-based economies
(Zangeneh, 1995).
Alongside this, there is increased motivation for lenders
(whether this is the World Bank, or a national bank) to be
informed about schemes and provide expert guidance, support and resources throughout the process
would increase the chances of success overall (Zangeneh,
1995). Other important principles of Islamic Economic
Systems is that decision-making must not be on an
individual basis, but must reflect the opinions of board
members and shareholders and be made with the overall
benefit of society in mind (Wilson, 2015). Islamic
economist Syed Naqvi focuses on the micro-economic
level, arguing that while Muslims have free will
(ikhtiyar) to execute business decisions as they wish, it is
their moral duty (fardh) to serve society in order to
become closer to God, an ultimate goal in Islam (Wilson,
2015). In the absence of any realistic accountability
mechanisms or adequate global governance in the current
economy, the Islamic view of divine accountability
judgement motivating morality and accountability seems
as viable a solution as any.
However as there are limited case
there may be difficulties in applying the Islamic system
to real-life ethical dilemmas such as prioriti
social issues over others. This is especially complicated
considering the vast difference of opinions that already
exists amongst Islamic scholars. Another criticism of the
Islamic Economic System is its assumption that citizens
will act ethically in line with Islamic principles, however
this assumption does not apply to non
such has limited applicability when applying this system
to a global economy. However, given that Islam is the
fastest growing religion in the world an
Christianity by the end of the century, i
applicability is worth reconsidering in the future (Lipka
and Hackett, 2017). Overall, this system decreases the
risk of domination of philanthrocapitalism for three main
reasons: it leads towards a fairer distribution of wealth
where unfair accumulations do not exist; people are more
inclined to act morally and work towards social justice
due to the promise of absolute accountability for all
individual deeds, and where racial hierarc
exist since all human life is valued equally in Islam.
Although Islamic literature focuses mainly on applying
these systems within individual sovereign states, I argue
that in line with the shift towards a globalised economy,
these principles should be also applied globally to
institutions such as the World Bank. After the financial
crisis of the 1980s, the World Bank provided long
loans along with economy and policy reform advice to
LMICS, forcing these states into crippling debt (Bret
Woods Project, 2020). Pope John Paul II (1987) stated
the following regarding the debt crisis: ‘Capital needed
by the debtor nations to improve their standard of living
now has to be used for interest payments on their debts’.
Needless to say, this situation could’ve been avoided if
equity-based financing options with reform
recommendations based on establishing social justice and
equitable redistributions of wealth had been used, as
opposed to interest-based finance.
Conclusion
To conclude, philanthropic organisations positively
serves society in material ways, such as through Gates’
malaria eradication campaigns, easing significant
financial burden from the government in funding global
development goals. However, the same demographic of
wealthy white males from the US dominates the
philanthrocapitalist scene (despite an marked increase in
international philanthropic actors) who exhibit the same
orientalist views in their philanthropic visions.
Furthermore, the public narrative surrounding
philanthrocapitalists often hides unethical and illegal
practices such as top-down governance approaches that
prioritise Western interests and downplay the needs of
local scientists and researchers. This is characteristic of
the white saviour complex, where wea
individuals are performatively altruistic and present
themselves as wanting to “give back” to primarily black
people and people of colour, without acknowledging the
underlying power imbalances and social hierarchies that
perpetuate racial inequalities in the first place.
The origins of these processes stem from the origins of
capitalism, according to Marx, namely accumulation of
capital by dispossession and centralisation of capital.
These exploitative processes progressively drained the
peripheries, or the Global South, of their resources. As a
result, social welfare structures such as education and
healthcare were left largely underfunded. Literature
focusing on colonialism, unless written from a feminist
framework, largely fails to take into account women’s
social reproduction and household labour, which is likely
intentional considering how much capitalist economies
benefit from unpaid labour. Furthermore, due to a vast
gap in the application of ethics within research, and an
emphasis on research being value-neutral, there is a
failure to acknowledge and condemn the depths of
trauma caused by the West’s exploitative practices
through capitalism and colonisation. Critical reflexivity,
rooted in a feminist ethics of care framework, addresses
this by encouraging researchers to situate themselves
within the sociopolitical context they are studying.
Turning to current-day effects of capitalism such as
unequal accumulations of wealth, this has the undue
consequence of extremely wealthy individuals gaining political power and manipulating public institutions for
self-interests. The Rockefeller Foundation, held in high
prestige in mainstream media, manipulated and
controlled the medical industry in the US, changing
medical curriculums to favour patented drugs owned by
Big Pharma over natural remedies, and reducing
opportunities within the medical field for black people
and women, demographics that remain underrepresented
in medical research to this day. Alongside this, the Gates
Foundation favour technological solutionism such as GM
crops over sustainable social and healthcare reform,
benefiting their own Foundation Trust members who
hold positions within pharmaceutical companies.
In order to work towards a redistribution of wealth and
alleviation of global poverty, Singer argues that we all
have a moral responsibility to donate small portions of
our wealth given the amount of difference it makes on an
individual level while Pogge argues that we have a duty
not to financially contribute to companies engaging in
unethical, exploitative practices. In order to counter the
capitalism-imposed ideology of “the rugged individual”,
Marx argues that helping to alleviate poverty (directly or
indirectly) connects us to our “species-being” and is thus
the morally correct position. Islamic theology presents
the most viable method for establishing a redistribution
of wealth by arguing that in the Islamic Economic
System, equity-based finance should replace
usury/interest-based finance, with the underlying
assumption that citizens will act ethically. To
supplement this article, further research could be taken
into successful attempts to redistribute wealth locally,
and how these could be applied to the global economy.
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