Bill Gates urges fellow rich to share their wealth

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h37xgxUGSoxn8tHWAxhkesTyVk7Q

by swombat • 17 years ago

32 38 17 years ago

zouhair7• 17 years ago

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>

Silentio3• 17 years ago

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.

swombat4• 17 years ago

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.

jmatt2• 17 years ago

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.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

EDIT: Added links.

zouhair7• 17 years ago

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.

marcocampos• 17 years ago

Hey buddy, how about starting this by selling your software cheaper?

nopassrecover• 17 years ago

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

lutorm2• 17 years ago

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.

barry-cotter• 17 years 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.

bokonist2• 17 years ago

The government is not a charity. The programs that have the outward appearance of charity in reality operate for the benefit of the employees.

lutorm2• 17 years ago

Can you provide some proof of that last statement? I highly doubt that's the case.

(And even if it was true, how do you know that's not true of the charities, too?)

vyrotek• 17 years ago

Attn: Rich People - I am willing to accept your wealth. Please contact me ASAP.

viggity• 17 years ago

I'm cool with Gates urging, I'm not cool with the government forcing

rgr• 17 years ago

I'm cool with both.

xiaoma• 17 years ago

"I'm not cool with the government forcing"

Then it's not really "sharing", is it?

Bill Gates urges fellow rich to share their wealth

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