Sounds like the charities of the last king of France and it's followers. People don't need charity, most of those are rich because of huge help of people's money and people's hard work. </mini_rant>
Slavoj Zizek's thinking on violence is worth quoting here:
"The two faces of Bill Gates parallel the two faces of Soros. The cruel businessman destroys or buys out competitors, aims at virtual monopoly, employs all the tricks of the trade to achieve his goals. Meanwhile, the greatest philanthropist in the history of mankind quaintly asks: 'What does it serve to have computers, if people do not have enough to eat and are dying of dysentery?' In liberal communist ethics, the ruthless pursuit of profit is counteracted by charity. Charity is the humanitarian mask hiding the face of economic exploitation. In a superego blackmail of gigantic proportions, the developed countries "help" the underdeveloped with aid, credits, and so on, and thereby avoid the key issue, namely their complicity in and co-responsibility for the miserable situation of the underdeveloped" (Violence 22).
Gates "give away your wealth, billionaires. It's fun!" rhetoric focuses only on subjective violence - violence, as Zizek writes, "which is enacted by social agents, evil individuals, disciplined repressive apparatuses," etc. The "do-this-now-its-fun" call distracts attention away from the systematic violence nestled at the root of capitalism. Zizek writes, and I think he's right, that Gates call for a friendlier robber baron "signals a sad predicament of ours: today's capitalism cannot reproduce itself on its own. It needs extra-economic charity to sustain the cycle of social reproduction" (24).
That is not to say that Gates money will not do some good. I imagine it will do and has done. However, I do think it is a distraction from the real issue, which is the massive global economic exploitation necessary to produce Gates's wealth in the first place.
That's a thoroughly unfair assessment. It assumes that all wealth is ill-gotten, and that is utterly baseless.
Microsoft created and distributed an operating system that brought affordable computing to the masses. They generated enormous wealth for all of mankind, and they did so mostly playing by the rules that were set down for how commerce should be conducted. Certainly, they did some things outside of those rules, and for those they should be and have been punished. But on the whole, the world is still a better place with Microsoft than it would have been without.
Taking Warren Buffet or Soros next, capitalism functions well because there are fiendishly clever people like those trying to figure out where to best allocate their capital to maximise their returns. This fundamental principle allows us to move wealth to wherever it's needed, whatever is the next big thing that humanity should be working on. Without them, we would be worse off too, since capital would be badly allocated - for example, to building countless overpriced houses rather than other things.
What you suggest here is dangerous, because there is a grain of truth in it. Yes, there have been centuries of everyone exploiting everyone else. But pointing that out is useless, because it doesn't help make the situation better. And ascribing that blame to a few individuals, particularly those who started from nothing and built tremendous wealth through their hard work, is completely unfair and unwarranted.
If you have some practical suggestions, rather than pointless muck-stirring, please do share them instead of quoting conspiracy theorists.
The idea that the wealthy started from nothing and ascribing their wealth to the "hard work" of building from nothing is romantic, but ultimately it's a fantasy. No doubt much individual hard work goes into building a fortune, but the fortune itself owes much more to the labor of thousands, if not millions, of workers, right down to the janitor who sweeps the floor, than it does to the individual who had the next big idea. Labor certainly has more to do with wealth than capital itself.
Inequality is embedded in capitalism. When the invisible hand moves capital from one place to another, it does not only give, it takes away. For someone like Bill Gates to give as he does, he has to have taken away (you might prefer "created") in the first place.
It may be muck-stirring, but I am less interested in saving the world than I am in understanding the ideological assumptions implicit in, for instance, Gates's actions, and the systems that allow those actions to take place. To leave the muck unstirred, to forget it exists, is to live in a world that does nothing but support conventional wisdom, excludes alternatives, and limits debate. The useful question is not, "is this True or not," but rather, "what would it mean if it were true."
Finally, if Zizek is a conspiracy theorist, was Hegel, was Marx?
Inequality is embedded in capitalism. When the invisible hand moves capital from one place to another, it does not only give, it takes away. For someone like Bill Gates to give as he does, he has to have taken away (you might prefer "created") in the first place.
That is where your misunderstanding lies. The world is not a finite-sum game. Wealth created is not wealth taken away. Someone like Bill Gates accumulated a lot of wealth because he created a lot of wealth - not because he took it from someone else. The difference between "taking away" and "creating" is like the difference between murder and sex.
How is that our World is not finite? Simply take the U.S., the difference between the rich and the poor widened immensely, because most of the profit (or what you call "created wealth") is not shared equally among those who made it. I doubt Bill Gates would have gained so much if he were alone doing the job, we favour only the one who bring the money not the one who do the actual job. There is a capital gain in people's work and their wages are far from covering it.
The world is not finite from any perspective, whether physical or economic:
- The world is not finite from a physical point of view, because it receives gigantic amounts of solar energy from the sun. Sure, it tends to radiate much of it back out, but a large chunk of that energy is converted into "wealth" in a biological form, via photosynthesis. That continually increased wealth is what has allowed us to progress from single-celled organisms to what we are today.
- The world is not closed from an economic point of view because work has a value (something your ilk seems to be arguing for, I believe) and new work is done every day. Every bit of productive work adds more value to the system, more wealth. Some people's work is more valuable because it creates more wealth. Those people are (and should be) rewarded accordingly, in a fair system.
You should read up on Microsoft's history. Bill Gates started off as a developer. He most definitely "did the work". Also, only someone who has never done any meaningful work in a business could possibly fail to understand that "management" work is not only very hard and complicated, it is also essential. Left to their own devices, most large groups of people devolve into chaos, producing no useful work whatsoever.
Finally...
There is a capital gain in people's work and their wages are far from covering it.
Of course. You're absolutely right. The reason for that is that the people receiving those wages did not take any risk. They receive a pay check at the end of the month, and they don't need to worry about whether or not the product will be successful, whether the company will get sued, whether key members of the company will suddenly leave and start a competitor, etc - they get their money anyway. The founders of a company take most of that risk, particularly at the beginning, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should get most of the reward.
More fairly shared, sure. Why would I ever exert myself or go beyond what's necessary if I was only ever guaranteed an equal share - the same share as the guy next to me who slacked off during the entire enterprise?
You're assuming that wealth and money are closed systems.
They are not.
Money is just a universal currency that we all use for work. Do you want a new ipod? Well, apple doesn't trade in man-hours, they trade in dollars. So what you need to do is get a job with somebody that will trade you some of their dollars for your man hours (think of an employer like a currency exchange). Once you have exchanged enough of the currency you have (time) for the currency that the currency exchange (your employer) has (dollars), you can take them to apple and trade them for an iPod.
Apple then reverses the transaction. They take some of the dollars that you gave them, and trade their workers some of the dollars for some of their man-hours.
Dollars are just a common currency. The INPUT (making it a non-closed system) is work.
So no, by creating wealth, you are NOT simply robbing it from people. This is appropriately called "robbery".
And what about the Capital Gain, the salary doesn't cover that. And what about the minority owning the majority of the money. The game is utterly rigged in favour of the powerful.
The game is utterly rigged in favor of the powerful
I want you to think about that statement for a while.
The game isn't rigged in favor of the powerful. The powerful are powerful because they have power. Because of this power they are able to influence things. Their ability to influence things makes them powerful.
Inequality is embedded in capitalism. When the invisible hand moves capital from one place to another, it does not only give, it takes away. For someone like Bill Gates to give as he does, he has to have taken away (you might prefer "created") in the first place.
I, for one, am mortally afraid of living in an "equal" world. Your website tells me you want to pursue a PhD, so let's talk about that. You are a person who has worked hard for achieving your academic goals. Would you like to be considered equal to a person who spent his life partying and clubbing and not giving a shit? Would you like it if someone gave this party animal the PhD you deserve?
Yes, Gates had an advantage. His genius lies in recognizing that advantage, and building on it. Gates came from a rich family. Instead of wasting away what he had, he used that wealth and power and built Microsoft -- one of the most recognized brands on planet Earth.
Mind you, I'm not against philanthropy. Heck, I wish my government spent 100x more cash on building schools in backwards areas, and that a few local millionaires threw some cash in, too. What I'm against is this prevalent notion that people should be "equal". Created equal? Surely. But after that, nobody is equal.
Inequality is good. Inequality makes the world go around.
>...This fundamental principle allows us to move wealth to wherever it's needed, whatever is the next big thing that humanity should be working on. Without them, we would be worse off too, since capital would be badly allocated - for example, to building countless overpriced houses rather than other things....
That's just plain wrong, just look at the endless losses of jobs in the US and other rich countries in the past years, all in the name of profit, see the suffering of most of the World countries under the yoke of the World Bank and the IMF and so on and so on. There is such a thing as a World without capitalism, capitalism is just man made, so it can be replaced.
I don't know who said it but I like it : "Workers don't need a Boss, but a Boss needs Workers". Works with big capitalists.
The society as a whole can benefit from this kind of philanthropy long after it happens. For instance I directly benefited as a kid from a Carnegie library[1]. Meanwhile Andrew Carnegie is considered a robber baron[2] worse than Gates in most respects. Yet, I'm still grateful for the library. Gates is already wealthy, so at this point I'd rather see him use it for philanthropy rather than create another Rockefeller family trust.
I didn't say philanthropy is bad, I say that one can survive with $100,000,000 (number pulled out of my arse) and anything more than that should be taxed to make a better life for the majority. And with with this kind of money you can still be a philanthropist.
You can't do this sort of philanthropy with 1/500th of the money. The difference between government doing it and a philanthropist is efficiency. There are no beaurocracies or regulations when it's your money and your charity. Meanwhile if the government was going to do the same thing it would be bogged down in politics and bureaucracy.
As for increasing taxes on the super rich - as far as I know Gates and Buffet both support the idea. They also support a serious estate tax for the super rich (aka death tax). And they cite the reasons you cite. The wealth came from the society as a whole and thus should go back to them. That is one reason they've put so much of their net worth in Gates' foundation. [These aren't my personal beliefs about taxes or the death tax...]
I think it would be a very hard argument to say that the money Carnegie or Gates is using could some how be used better by most governments and definitely not by the US government. The Gates foundation even has a lifespan on it. It will cease to exist 50 years after Bill and Melinda die[1]. That is commendable in my opinion. It guarantees it doesn't become a Ford Foundation (etc.) and it ensures the money is spent on the generation that created the fortune.
How about not bitching about higher corporate taxes then? If you think of government as a charity that does stuff like welfare and education, maybe he should have a sit-down with Ballmer re the story from a couple of days ago.
Because the contribution of medicine to lifespan and quality is dwarfed by cheap, easy and well understood tech like sanitation. Because education of similar quality can be delivered for half the cost (D.C. voucher programme cost a quarter) Because if you were aiming to help the most people possible with your money you sure as hell wouldn't be spending your money in any of the members of the OECD, never mind the USA.
My views come from years of working in government and politics, following current events, and reading inside accounts of how the political system works. Probably the best book on getting an understanding of how government works in practice is "Government's End" by Jonathan Rauch. If you want a more entertaining view, watch a few episodes of "Yes, Minister", which was based on the diaries of British cabinet minister Richard Crossman. Or simply take the time to learn in depth the politics and policy of one particular area, such as education. For example, the other day I was talking to a mayoral candidate in Boston. He explained that the biggest factor blocking all of the major reforms he would like to do were the teacher unions, and that they are extremely powerful because they vote as a block in a way that promotes their own interests.
The difference between government charity and private charity is that the workers in government charities form voting blocks that can redirect government tax payer dollars to fund their pay. Private charities must convince donors to voluntarily donate money.
I want to elaborate on your last sentence. With private charities I have much more direct influence on how my income is used. If a charity I am donating to no longer serves purposes with which I agree I am free to stop donating. Try to stop paying the government for programs which you don't support or strongly object to.
And perversely, if a government program under-performs it get more resources such that it's gotten to the point where some of the worst performing schools in America spend the most money per student.
Hopefully Arne Duncan will extend the precedent he set in Chicago by closing schools which consistently under-perform.
I really think the school voucher program where parents can decide where to send their kids will be the best. Heck, you could get on a professor and a assistant to open a one room school house and teach 15 kids. The parents make sure they like the curriculum and that's that. Imagine rapid innovation that could take place if we removed the regulations/certifications and allowed parents to choose.
Many problems with this, beginning with:
1) He doesn't set the price
2) If people didn't make money there wouldn't be rich people to be asked by Bill Gates to donate.
3) How would this help those in need of charity
