In this chapter, the author seeks to evaluate the counterhegemonic potential of the philanthropic action organized by Brazilian entrepreneurs and multinational companies in Brazil, a novelty which should in principle be interrogated given the traditional indifference of local elites toward the persistent social inequalities of the country. In order to do this, the author takes into account, firstly, the context of the policies of deregulation of public limits in the operation of the market economy, which has aggravated the traditional mechanisms of social and political exclusion. The result is the weakening of a more inclusive social contract and of the notion of citizenship rights for the access to social goods considered as public goods.

Secondly, considering the entrepreneurial philanthropic action within the context of the emergence of the so-called "third sector," the analysis indirectly links the dismantling of government regulation policies to the growth of private social and civil responsibility, highlighting the social investments of "citizen-entrepreneurs." These are characterized by ambiguity. On the one hand, they deploy the pragmatic procedures of the mercantile logic in order to achieve efficiency in their innovative programs of localized social intervention, motivating the population's voluntary civil activism for the social cause, which gives them important arguments of legitimacy in the dispute over what is "public." On the other hand, they manage to transform giving into a factor of valorization and profit, a part of the mercantile logic itself. In the process, distributive conflicts and the collective demand for citizenship and equality are withdrawn from the public and political arena and moved to another site - that of the private space of the social power of companies. Therefore, the author concludes that, although this case constitutes a significant response to poverty, it is one more counterexample of a democratic-participatory action that can complement, without contradictions, the neoliberal arrangements.