JB
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jbranch.bsky.social
JB
@jbranch.bsky.social
71 followers 83 following 22 posts
historian researching the nonprofit economy; guy doing various other things
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jbranch.bsky.social
My guys
September 2, 2025 at 4:27 PM
jbranch.bsky.social
Here's what I see as the upshot. To put a finer point on it: Trump, Musk, and the rest of the American right are leaving the contradictions of "Cornuellism" behind. Those committed to democracy and economic justice should too—by fighting for a robust public sector
After Nixon, Cornuelle abandoned direct engagement with politics, but subsequent Republican efforts to encourage the supplanting of government programs with private voluntary ones—from the Reagan administration’s President’s Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives to George H.W. Bush’s “Thousand Points of Light”—reflected his ideas. So, too, did efforts in the 1970s of other self-appointed sector advocates from the center-right to the center-left of the political spectrum—including John D. Rockefeller 3rd, John Gardner, Waldemar Nielsen, and the collective voice of the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. In the language of Cold War liberalism, these figures framed civil society organizations as a bulwark against authoritarianism, and they often echoed Cornuelle’s diagnosis of a private voluntary sector under threat from an ever-growing administrative state. That the name of the organization that emerged from this decade of efforts at self-definition was Independent Sector was likely no coincidence. Advocates for the sector’s well-being may respond by doubling down on well-worn rhetorical grooves, emphasizing nonprofits’ distance from the state and the importance of their autonomy and independence. Yet such an approach carries risks: the constituency for this narrative, forged in the political environment of the Cold War and the reaction to the growth of the administrative state, seems to be disempowered and shrinking. In its place is a movement that, in Rothbardian fashion, prioritizes personal enrichment and unchecked private power over the very notion of shared social obligations. In this political moment, the fates of the private nonprofit sector and the welfare state are profoundly linked, both ideologically and materially. Perhaps this presents an opportunity for a new vision—one that unapologetically embraces the central role of the public sector in creating and maintaining a democratic and egalitarian society.
February 18, 2025 at 7:06 PM
jbranch.bsky.social
Out here with @claudebonet.bsky.social
December 22, 2024 at 8:17 PM
jbranch.bsky.social
Cool piece about the ongoing ambiguity of "nonprofit" as a category
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
December 19, 2024 at 8:36 PM
jbranch.bsky.social
of course
November 19, 2024 at 7:51 PM