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Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#181

Post by thomnottom »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #161
thomnottom wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct in that the current state of US politics almost makes it the same thing. However it is possible that the US electorate could fix that problem over time.

Is that more difficult or less difficult than convincing people to stop using Zuckerberg's products?

I wish I knew the answer.

But a change coming through the electorate process should have a more lasting effect as simply boycotting Facebook would merely shift the wealth and influence to another person instead of Zuckerberg.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#182

Post by slavik81 »

Retra wrote: post #178
slavik81 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal elections occur every two years. You've already voted on it.

The granularity of that vote was quite insignificant next to the scope of this issue, don't you think?

Well, to some extent I agree. But, the coarseness of the control of the citizens over the government in a representative democracy is part what causes government inefficiency. Unfortunately, extreme granularity in democracy has its own problems, so that's not easily solved.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#183

Post by Tiktaalik »

I'm curious, with the LLC structure of the Chan Zuckerberg organization, there is more flexibility than a non profit. Are there any checks at all to ensure that it is actually operated as a charity? For example, thinking generations ahead, could a Mark Zuckerberg III go against his ancestor's wishes and take the private company in a totally different direction and not actually do any charitable work with the money?

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#184

Post by clock_tower »

sophacles wrote: post #124
lloyddobbler wrote: post #15

> I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable. Or flip that around - is Krämer's implied solution not a case of the state taking the place of the individual? Put another way, if you founded a company, created thousands…

Why should you get to ignore the state's role in creating the environment in which your actions were possible?

You don't; taxes serve as that acknowledgement... assuming relatively few loopholes.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#185

Post by marknutter »

henrikschroder wrote: post #144
marknutter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the structure that enabled you to amass that amount of wealth is flawed, and disproportionately rewards "you" over the network that actually did much of the heavy lifting This thinking is so poisonous and destructive and pervasive that I'm starting to wonder if it is either due to some natural law of human nature or some grand conspiracy to destroy modern society. Businesses are not built on the charity of…

> Businesses are not built on the charity of the "system". From where does the business get the college-educated workforce so that it can be viable in the first place? The answer is that hundreds of years of prosperity has created a system where enough people are middle class, value education, foster happy and curious children that don't need to work, and can send them off to college for an education because they don…

> From where does the business get the college-educated workforce so that it can be viable in the first place?

That's insanity. Businesses pay more for college educated employees exactly because they are worth more, and in doing so they are "paying their fair share". It's not like these college educated employees are donating the extra money they should be making to the companies they work for. They demand higher salaries and companies often pay them. Again, everybody is square in the deal.

It would be just as insane for me to suggest that no individual is entitled to the money they earn because without all the private companies out there they wouldn't have all the tools and services required to achieve that success. Therefore, businesses are entitled to their labor for discounted rates or even for free.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#186

Post by ancap »

dragonwriter wrote: post #104
lloyddobbler wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the money always belonged to the state, and the state simply allows its constituents to keep some of the money they earn, your logic stands. But if the money ever belonged to the individual, then the public cannot "subsidize" the individual keeping what he/she earned. Put another way: if I walk up to someone on the street and forcibly take their money - and if that wasn't mine to begin with - most people would cal…

> But if the money ever belonged to the individual Nothing belongs to (as distinct from being immediately, physically controlled by) anyone except in the sense that social convention grants them some, usually limited, exclusive control over it. The typical avenue through which that social convention for both the right to control and its limitations is expressed in the modern world is the institution of the State via…

I have seen this argument expressed several times on HN and I find it quite puzzling.

To paraphrase the argument goes something like: "Society giveth and society taketh away"

Implied in the argument is that the state is synonymous with society. Even in a democratic society you have the issue that a) a limited percentage of the population actually vote and b) of those who vote a minority did not get what they wanted.

Regardless of what extent the government does reflect the will of society, you still have the issue that we currently do have a system of personal property rights. If you believe those rights exist only because society willed them be for whatever reason, then arguing that no one really owns anything is quite the circular argument.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#187

Post by thomnottom »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #175
thomnottom wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because neither the article nor the German billionaire (sorry, I really should go back and get his name instead of referencing the title, but I'm being lazy) are saying that private foundations are inherently bad - which is what the comment I replied to stated. What he says is bad is shifting the decision to the wealthy instead of the public.

That's still the same thing; if the public is deciding where the funding is going then it isn't a private foundation anymore. Now, if the public is deciding by choosing where to put their own funding, in the form of donations, that makes more sense. But in that sense, the millionaires and billionaires creating or donating to charitable foundations are doing the same thing: deciding where to put their own funding.

No, it is not the same thing. A private foundation can continue to be a part of the solution without it being the focus. Krämer's (I checked the name!) point is that the focus in the US is private donations which means that the billionaires have a much higher level of influence on where the money goes. It's not that, say, the Make A Wish Foundation is inherently bad or that donating to them is a bad thing, rather the possibility that Zuckerberg could decide to give them 95% of his wealth while more critical social services receive none of it that is concerning.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#188

Post by ancap »

thomnottom wrote: post #130
marknutter wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the structure that enabled you to amass that amount of wealth is flawed, and disproportionately rewards "you" over the network that actually did much of the heavy lifting This thinking is so poisonous and destructive and pervasive that I'm starting to wonder if it is either due to some natural law of human nature or some grand conspiracy to destroy modern society. Businesses are not built on the charity of…

> Everyone is compensated in the building of a business, in exactly the amounts they demand to be compensated. No, they are compensated in what is agreed to by both sides - which is not necessarily fair or representative of the part they played in building the business.

>No, they are compensated in what is agreed to by both sides

Yes, and if they were not made better off by it they would have never agreed to it.

>which is not necessarily fair or representative of the part they played in building the business.

No one is compensated based on what percentage they contribute to building a business or product. That is referred to the labor theory of value and it has been disproven.

As for fair, you tell me what fair is.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#189

Post by dragonwriter »

ancap wrote: post #186
dragonwriter wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if the money ever belonged to the individual Nothing belongs to (as distinct from being immediately, physically controlled by) anyone except in the sense that social convention grants them some, usually limited, exclusive control over it. The typical avenue through which that social convention for both the right to control and its limitations is expressed in the modern world is the institution of the State via…

I have seen this argument expressed several times on HN and I find it quite puzzling. To paraphrase the argument goes something like: "Society giveth and society taketh away" Implied in the argument is that the state is synonymous with society. Even in a democratic society you have the issue that a) a limited percentage of the population actually vote and b) of those who vote a minority did not get what they wanted.…

> Regardless of what extent the government does reflect the will of society, you still have the issue that we currently do have a system of personal property rights.

We have a system of personal property rights in which personal property is subject to taxation, both ad valorem taxation of wealth (usually, in practice, certain classes of assets are targeted for this, but there is no systemic prohibition in our system of it being applied anywhere) and taxes on particular uses or exchanges of property.

So using the existence of those property rights to argue against taxation to support public priorities is quite the self-contradictory argument.

Re: Why a German billionaire says that pledges like Mark Zuckerberg’s are really bad

#190

Post by clock_tower »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #170
redblacktree wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurray for federalism!

How does federalism solve the problem?

Assuming that "federalism" means what I think it means (federation of independent entities, delegating economy-of-scale responsibilities like war and diplomacy to the center while keeping everything else for themselves), my guess would be this: that it ensures that government operates on a local level, where the number of people represented by a given legislature is smaller -- so individual votes have more impact and the proportion of voters frozen out by being in minorities is smaller.

This has two obvious failure modes: it can decay into warlordism, and the member communities can hate each other passionately enough to go to war. (So federalism is a non-starter for the US at the present day.)

Of course, if the poster here didn't mean by federalism what I guessed that it means, the above is irrelevant.

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