The political economy of philanthropy: Vidich’s contribution to a revamped intellectual endeavour

Lina Ochoa-Carreno

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2025, vol. 49, issue 2, 311-324

Abstract: The prevailing approach to philanthropy among economists has revolved around individual giving behaviour. Although some elements for a political economy perspective to philanthropy were sketched by a few economists in the 60s and 70s, they were disjointed and such an approach never took off. This article reviews the early evolution of economic thinking on philanthropy and examines the ideas of sociologist Arthur Vidich, which provide relevant elements for the construction of a systemic, political economy framework to philanthropy. Building on Marxist analytical principles, Vidich offers some organising themes for the study of philanthropy from a sociologist’s viewpoint. However, the economic nature of this phenomenon is somewhat missing in his work and needs to be addressed. This article explores two major channels through which the contemporary economic dynamics affects philanthropy: the financialisation and the technological change, and calls for a comprehensive inclusion of philanthropy in the analysis of the economic system.

Keywords: Philanthropy; Economic theory; Political Economy; Capitalist systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/beaf006 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cambje:v:49:y:2025:i:2:p:311-324.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().