>If you think so, then donate 100% of your income to the government and live on public assistance. I've always found these arguments to be poor attempts at a r

>If you think so, then donate 100% of your income to the government and live on public assistance. I've always found these arguments to be poor attempts at a reductio ad absurdum. While some people do take vows of poverty, by and large this is not what's meant by advocates of public institutions. The thing is that there is a large body of services and capital investments that are most efficiently - for both economic and political reasons - conducted by accountable, democratic institutions. The canonical example are roads and firemen but also education and public transit and healthcare and some kinds of housing. We can debate over the legitimacy of particular governance mechanisms (NIMBYs in the Bay!) or political actors in given jurisdictions (State senators in NY!) but by and large in North America people have some sort of say in outcomes that affect them. The problem is precisely that by >following the law and organizing his affairs to retain control of the money he earned his gift is a considerably less selfless act. It's one thing to "eradicate malaria". It's another completely to "try to make the world resemble what Chan Zuckerberg want". You're allowed to do this with your own money, of course. But it's considerably less altruistic of you. If you were anywhere at all already suspicious of his intentions given the product his company has developed, the idea that he will be dedicating billions of dollars towards his own (political) agenda is not exactly heartwarming.