Your definition of freedom is just anarchy. The obvious question: What's to stop somebody from murdering you and taking your wealth? The same objective (or subjective, take your pick) morality that discourages robbery-murder can effortlessly extend to the distribution of wealth in society. An objective moralist once said: "Render unto Caesar...". A subjective moralist could say: "whatever minimizes human suffering an…
Your definition of freedom is just anarchy How do you go from "it's no ones business how much wealth I accumulate or give to my children" to "anarchy"? That's not what the OP said at all.
The best one in my book is number 5: 5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked. Why would anything following that actually be better?
Just to take a specific example from the list: preventing people from becoming poor in the first place is better. How could it not be? They avoid the mental pain and stress of being poor and feeling like they are dependent on handouts to survive...
Seems a bit subjective. How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action?
If you need to do this over and over again, and we're talking about just that, it seems like giving to the poor is a pretty good algorithm.
I’ve long argued for massive estate tax rates on large estates in order to incentivize behavior like this. I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion (or whatever it is now), but it’s this dynastic wealth that I find borderline sickening. Why in the hell should the Rockefeller’s of today be billionaires??? Also, these giant charitable foundations/family offices are similarly off-putting, as they are…
An Open Letter from Economists on the Estate Tax To whom it may concern: Spend your money on riotous living – no tax; leave your money to your children – the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. It discourages saving a…
It's kind of sad how it's framed in those passages - Give in secret, or God will notice and hold back some of those heavenly rewards. As if the whole thing is just a karmic ponzi scheme.
That’s not sad at all. There are plenty of secular reasons for doing a good deed for the sake of the deed itself — not the reward or recognition. I mean, this is basically the entire underpinning of Kantian ethics.
That's exactly my point though. I'm an atheist, and I don't do good things out of a desire for "rewards in heaven", or rewards of any kind. I don't refrain from stealing because I'm afraid of hell or punishment. As you point out, they're done for the act itself.
This passage presents altruism as a tit-for-tat deal with God. Do good, and you'll get some of that back...later. I promise! It's almost tacky.
Gates' wealth keeps increasing. Sure he gives a lot away but, but he is making 1+ billion per year above what he gives away. It is great that money is going to charity, it is great that money previously belonging to Gates' is going to charity, but I would be far more impressed by you if you donated $100/year to the Internet Archive than I am if Bill Gates donated $100 million. In other words, I don't think anyone cla…
Of course one could argue that we should not be dependent on the goodwill and grace of billionaires to choose to donate their wealth to good causes, but rather should tax fortunes at an onerous rate and put that money in public, democratic control, regardless. For each Chuck Feeny and Bill Gates how many Waltons OR Kochs do we have?
How do you know what the Walton's and Koch's are doing with their wealth? Perhaps they are doing the same thing as Feeny but without the fanfare. I think they are. Are you singling them out because of political differences?
Of course one could argue that we should not be dependent on the goodwill and grace of billionaires to choose to donate their wealth to good causes, but rather should tax fortunes at an onerous rate and put that money in public, democratic control, regardless. For each Chuck Feeny and Bill Gates how many Waltons OR Kochs do we have?
How do you know what the Walton's and Koch's are doing with their wealth? Perhaps they are doing the same thing as Feeny but without the fanfare. I think they are. Are you singling them out because of political differences?
Waltons and Kochs actually give a lot. I am very close to an organization that receives money from both of their foundations. They do have a political agenda with much or their giving but in certain areas it could be considered apolitical.
One could argue that everyone has the same responsibilities to society at large. Thus for every Chuck Feeny and Bill Gates, you, personally you, have an obligation to create many billion dollars of value and give it away. If you don't do that, you're worse than any evil billionaire you care to name. They at least are paying millions of dollars in taxes for any money they pull out of investments. How many millions in…
This is a good turnaround of the previous statement. It is incorrect to assume there is only so much wealth, and subsequently, billionaires need to be taxed in order to maintain our standard of living. Most billionaires have created something entirely new, not hoarded some scarce resource from the rest of us.
Perhaps, but only to an extent. It is not as if, if only average people were clever enough, we could all become billionaires, and the GDP could be 10,000x higher than it currently is. There are, in fact, scarce resources – including land and minerals and other natural resources, but also labor. Most billionaires become that way by being in charge of a large company, one with a lot of workers. Well, you can't be the ruler without people to rule over. And if not for you, those people would still exist and would be making some other contribution to society.
> I wonder what Feeney makes of Gates in 2020. Stuff like that. My point is that spamming links with no other commentary makes me wonder if you have a point here.
If you'd actually bothered to read the two 'spam' links as you called them you would understand the point I was making. Link one: FT oped by Gates published today about Covid19 Vaccines Link Two: Article about Gates rapidly growing fortune and how difficult it is for people as rich as he is to give away money.
And what do either of those have to do with Freeney's opinion on Gates?
We're not going to try and guess what you're thinking, you have to tell us.
I’ve long argued for massive estate tax rates on large estates in order to incentivize behavior like this. I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion (or whatever it is now), but it’s this dynastic wealth that I find borderline sickening. Why in the hell should the Rockefeller’s of today be billionaires??? Also, these giant charitable foundations/family offices are similarly off-putting, as they are…
An Open Letter from Economists on the Estate Tax To whom it may concern: Spend your money on riotous living – no tax; leave your money to your children – the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. It discourages saving a…
I find it shocking that someone of Milton Friedman's stature would begin his argument with something as flimsy as an appeal to virtue ethics. Hard to take the following statement seriously when it begins with such a baseless and by no means uncontroversial value judgment. That Friedman considers "accumulating wealth" a "virtue" in itself is a profound indictment of his worldview.