Anand Giridharidas's book, "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World" is an excellent commentary on this state of affairs. He particularly takes on the act of massive charities (Gates, Buffet etc) because the acts by which a few individuals make a lot of money are precisely the ones that have screwed up society so bad. We should not look at philanthropists so kindly.
That sounds very "leftist" in circular-logic where more money means you are axiomatically automatically the most guilty regardless of level of harm caused. Which means that if you were to become the first trillionare by curing 95% of all forms of cancer then you are clearly history's greatest monster.
He could just not take the money in the first place, then he wouldn't be burdened with giving it away. The fact that he wants to get it in the first place belies his real intentions.
> So, the Series B Investors are giving 10% of our shares in this round to the people in the reddit community, and I hope we increase community ownership over time. [1]
> "While there is no enforcement in place to ensure pledge members follow through on their promise, the Giving Pledge educates them on ways they can make their donation, which is seen as “public, moral commitment."
How hard is it for the ultra-rich to simply cut a check every year to a charitable organization they didn't invent as a tax vehicle, at a time of incredible suffering globally through conflict or natural disasters?
Medecins Sans Frontieres, World Vision, the Red Cross --- all these orgs engaged in active disaster responses are almost entirely funded by regular people like you and me making a charitable donation.
Why do the rich need this dog and pony show?
Regular Americans on regular salaries manage to scrounge up a few bucks each year to give to food banks, or help provide kids with school supplies, or other forms of mutual aid . They don't have articles written about them.
Because alleviating suffering is not the goal. Reputation laundering, giving friends and family cushy sinecures, optimizing tax liability, and placating the masses and governments are the goals.
Maybe I'm overly nostalgic, but the reputation laundering in years past didn't seem to preclude significant financial gifts to things the general public benefited from, such as scholarships, public parks and libraries. Bill Gates for his part has done a lot to prevent the spread of infectious disease for the most vulnerable around the world.
Something definitely seems to have changed since those days. Warren Buffett is one of the top 5 most influential men on earth and does nothing besides spout folksy platitudes about how "it's not right" that his secretary pays a bigger percentage of her income on tax than he does. Even Jeff Bezos' divorce was a blessing in some ways as his ex-wife committed billions to charities that Bezos himself would not. The less said about Musk taunting the United Nations Food Programme's ask for $6bn, the better.
The Giving Pledge exist for one reason and one reason only. To avoid the discussion of an immediate and real billionaire tax. It's just a tax optimization strategy. Why don't we all defer our taxes with a pledge a 99% tax donation to the IRS...after our deaths?
"When he made the pledge in 2010, his net worth was $53 billion. Ten years later, his net worth is $115 billion. Bill Gates is 64 years old, so at this rate, he'll be worth $250 billion or more by the time he's supposed to have given away at least half his wealth.
Same thing with Warren Buffett, only much worse. In 2010, his net worth was $39 billion; today, his net worth is $82 billion. Buffett is 90 years old, so if he's planning on giving away at least half his wealth, he'd damn better well get crackin'!"
Yeah, ok, give me a call when that wealth has actually been put to good use, not when Sam “Not Even Sorry For Sexually Abusing My Sister” Altman claims it might possibly be in the future.
There's a huge difference between you or I donating a portion of our earnings to charity and reaping the tax benefits or a billionaire donating >50% of their wealth to causes that they decide and the outsized impact that can have.
The difference in the number of zeroes at the end of those figures is enormous and not comparable.
