11–20 of 40 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government is not a charity. The programs that have the outward appearance of charity in reality operate for the benefit of the employees.
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?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government is not a charity. The programs that have the outward appearance of charity in reality operate for the benefit of the employees.
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?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The government is not a charity. The programs that have the outward appearance of charity in reality operate for the benefit of the employees.
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?)
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?)
If a charity is deemed unsuccessful people will stop funding it and it will go out of business.
Hopefully Arne Duncan will extend the precedent he set in Chicago by closing schools which consistently under-perform.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?)
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 R…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
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.
I'm cool with Gates urging, I'm not cool with the government forcing