A Lesson From History: The Crucial Moment is Now

The “inexorable human progress” model of history holds that humanity has always been marching toward an advanced state of existence. Events unfold in such a way that we consistently move forward.

Mari Kuraishi has been in a unique position to consider the validity of this theory. Holding a degree in history from Harvard University, she has also worked at the World Bank and is now the co-founder and president of the GlobalGiving Foundation, a charity fundraising website that supports grassroots projects in the developing world.

From her vantage point as a both a historian and a global economic leader, Kuraishi has seen that human progress is not as inexorable as we tend to think. Society indeed advances, but people get left behind. The path of progress diverges or disappears altogether.

She has witnessed this reality in her homeland of Japan. When she was growing up, Japan was a “rising star,” she remembers. The economy was growing, Japanese brands were becoming world recognized and every generation was richer than the next. But by the ‘90s, the economy had begun to plateau.

“It’s been in that stage for 20 years,” Kuraishi notes. “The result is that young people have absolutely no expectation of getting a job in an expanding company.” Now, she says, they go from job to job at smaller companies, usually working part-time.

She wonders if these changes have altered the character of Japan’s younger generations: “Are they fundamentally different? I think they might be. Even in a society that is regarded as very conservative, you can get quick shifts in people’s expectations.”

Whether these shifts mean progress for Japan in the long run remains to be seen. But Kuraishi’s professional life has been devoted to the notion that the most important historical moment is now. People who are struggling cannot wait for progress to pull them along.

This is a simple lesson from history. During the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest advisor, Harry Hopkins, once told opponents of relief programs: “People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day.”

In anticipating future progress, Kuraishi places some of her faith in technology. She notes that technology has radically changed business in a positive sense, especially the way it enables unknown businesses to break out quickly with substantially lower costs.

“The speed with which companies emerge and can dominate is much faster because the barriers to entry are a lot lower than they used to be, and the advantages of incumbency are a lot lower than they used to be too,” she says.

What Kuraishi hasn’t seen as a result of technological advancement is a greater number of people enjoying things like clean air, safe neighborhoods and enough consumer goods to generate real value.

“Having a potential radical shift in the mix of public and private goods that leads to individual satisfaction has got to be part of the equation, otherwise it’s not realistic for us to depend on the engine of market economics,” she says.

GlobalGiving doesn’t wait for that engine to move. Depending on government bureaucracies or large corporations to enact initiatives with trickledown impact leaves too many lives and too much potential growth in the balance.

Working from the ground up, GlobalGiving matches grassroots projects in undeveloped regions with willing donors. The website utilizes the fruits of our technological progress to make donating easy and satisfying.

With just a few clicks, donors can give to a project that appeals to them and receive instant feedback on the details and progress of those efforts. Speed, transparency and choice are crucial to the giving experience.

“By making it easier, we’re hoping to make it more compelling,” Kuraishi explains. “It moves giving from an obligation to something you choose to do because it makes you happy. We want to make it as satisfactory as buying a new car.”

Technology may speed on, leaving some people floundering in its wake, but GlobalGiving is using it to unleash untapped philanthropic possibilities. Since 2002, the organization has helped more than 200 thousand donors contribute over $50 million to almost 5,000 projects around the world.

Through her careful management of the foundation, Kuraishi helps to uncover those pockets of human existence where inexorable human progress is taking its time.