Dr Rakhshinda Perveen

The limitations of social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is a part of capitalism and the existing order, rather than an alternative outside of it

....Each year the socially entrepreneurial Cirque de Soleil sets up its big tent at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Champagne is sipped whilst corporate CEOs, Russian oligarchs and Arab potentates ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the miracles being performed by the social entrepreneurs. The Occupy movement activists on the other hand are kept a long distance away and canapés are not put out for them. The venus factor diet is tear gas and police truncheon. Power, class - especially class - and entitlement are three subjects nowhere near high enough up the agenda of Skoll and Davos. It is very fashionable at such gatherings to hear mainstream politics trashed as unable to compete with the whizzy, sexy, genius social entrepreneurs. Yawn, party politics. How boring. How last century….

An excerpt from Liam Black’s Letter to a Young Social Entrepreneur: the poor are not the raw material for your salvation (2013)