Salon ran an interesting article this week about encouraging the opt 1 percent to spend on social good and infrastructure as the wealthy in previous generations have done – based on the life and writings of Andrew Carnegie. It’s a thoughtful piece, there was one paragraph that caught my attention…

One of the reasons why he believed the wealthy should spend their riches during their own lives was because he believed the wealthy were the best equipped to spend their own funds most wisely. We hear echoes of Carnegie’s confidence in contemporary Valley rhetoric every day. But there’s a difference. Silicon Valley’s best and brightest appear to believe that their wealth-generating “innovations” will do all the hard work of changing society for the better; that competition, unfettered by regulation, is the engine of prosperity. Carnegie would not have disagreed that society in general benefited from such market competition, but he also understood that the class stratification that results from “disruptive” redistributions of wealth also needed to be addressed. There are things that the market doesn’t fix. A contemporary version of Carnegie wouldn’t be waiting for venture-capital-funded MOOCs to provide wider access to education or free market competition to give everyone broadband access. After making his billions, Carnegie would cut straight to the chase. Free Wi-Fi for everyone! (The man built over 3,000 libraries, after all.)

I have joked in the past that it might be easier to raise funds if you could auction off naming rights for the network. Maybe just appealed to the legacy of Carnegie would be enough. Carnegie is also a great example of public-private partnership. He may have built the libraries, but it takes public support to keep them open!