“What the MacArthur Foundation really seems to be rewarding is a sort of generalized capacity for receiving honors.”
John D. MacArthur got rich by selling one-dollar life insurance policies through newspaper ads during the Depression. “Dubious” is how Parade magazine charitably described this scheme in 1976, by which time MacArthur was a self-made billionaire and self-styled colorful old codger, fond of shoveling leftover food into his pocket at banquets. When MacArthur died in 1977, he left almost the entire billion to a foundation named after himself and his wife. MacArthur’s own soft spots were for dogs, trees, and the handicapped. But his foundation’s first original venture is a “Prize Fellows Program” designed to “honor a small number of exceptionally talented individuals who have given evidence of originality and dedication to creative pursuits.” The first 21 fellows have just been chosen, with the help of 100 secret nominators scattered throughout the country. Each winner will get $24,000 to $60,000 a year for five years (tax free) plus health care and other expenses, so that they all may “devote themselves to their own creative endeavors.” The net effect of John D. MacArthur’s entrepreneurial life and philanthropic afterlife, then, will have been to take one dollar each from a large number of poor and ignorant people, assemble the money into somewhat larger amounts, and give these piles to a very few members of the prosperous, educated elite.
