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

• Afforess 11y ago
  There is no real explanation for why the pledge is "bad" except for the tired argument that the state is good and private foundations imitating the state are bad. There is no further clarification or explanation; We are supposed to accept this as some sort of given, without pretext or afterthought. Articles like this are bad.
  • HiLo 11y ago
    No I mean if you read all of it, it talks about the nuance in a lot of detail.
    • Afforess 11y ago
      No, it really doesn't. Here is the meat of it: > Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal. Literally, that is all the article has in terms of direct quotes and support. The rest of the article is a discussion and re-hash of other notable charities and comparison of charitable contributions per country, which is a side-tangent.
      • HiLo 11y ago
        What are you talking about? It has much more than that?
        • Afforess 11y ago
          Pretty sure it doesn't. Feel free to provide quotes / evidence if you disagree.
          • HiLo 11y ago
            Does that discussion of his $100 million donation simply not count in your book? Did it not show up in your browser?
            • Afforess 11y ago
              It's not relevant because their current pledge is significantly different in how it is managed (previous was a 503c charitable contribution, current is an LLC-based corporation that will have stricter control over allocation of funds).
              • HiLo 11y ago
                The legal structure has nothing to do with the principal here, stop obfuscating the argument.
      • Retric 11y ago
        "The pair do not have a sterling track record when it comes to effective charity. One of their previous efforts, a high-profile $100 million donation to fix the schools in Newark, N.J., has been widely criticized as a failure." Asking for a quote misses the point. Look into it yourself and the first link is Where Zuckerberg's $100 million gift went wrong http://www.cnbc.com/2014/05/23/where-zuckerbergs-100-million-gift-went-wrong-pros.html http://www.cnbc.com/2014/05/23/where-zuckerbergs-100-million...
        • marknutter 11y ago
          Government efforts never fail, on the other hand.
        • knughit 11y ago
          Note that the $100m was a gift to the government, overseen by thr governor of NJ, so it is hard to say that was a failure of private philanthropy vs government.
          • Chathamization 11y ago
            It wasn't simply a gift, Zuckerberg directed it towards the reforms he thought were fit. According to Business Insider: >Zuckerberg envisioned the teacher contract reform to be a centerpiece of the reform and contributed $50 million — half of his total donation — to go to working on that cause. So he decided to throw $50 million at teacher contract reform around the same time that, according to the CNBC article, "the state cutting $56 million in school aid."
  • guntars 11y ago
    The explanation is that it's the government (or rather the people) that's subsidizing the charitable work of the billionaires via tax breaks, but giving up any say in how the money is used.
    • mnx 11y ago
      It's not giving up any say, just most of it - after all, there is some government process to be an approved tax-break eligible charity, no? [not familiar with US law on this]
    • lloyddobbler 11y ago
      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 call that 'stealing' (or at least 'coercion' of some sort). If I chose to not forcibly take their money, and they then give that money to the homeless person on the corner, I'm not "subsidizing" the person whose money I didn't forcibly take. It was theirs to begin with - not mine.
      • learc83 11y ago
        The taxation as theft argument implies that you believe that society (through the state) isn't entitled to a share of your money as payment for providing the system that allows you to become rich in the first place. Without the infrastructure provided by society as a whole, no large business would be possible.
        • shaftoe 11y ago
          And without the production of the individuals and businesses that exist in a society, the state would have no ability to skim off the top and spend that money. I believe that the state (which isn't "society", it is the governing body of a region of land), has no right to a share of anything that is not voluntarily granted or contractually agreed upon. Believing in a higher entity with more rights than any individual is verging on something akin to feudalism.
  • jobu 11y ago
    Agreed. The article boils down to this: Krämer: "It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires." It's just a philosophical difference in opinion about who should decide what to do with the money - elected officials or billionaires.
    • HiLo 11y ago
      No, it's a difference in opinion about who should decide what to do with the power, as the quote said.
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    • lloyddobbler 11y ago
      It's just a philosophical difference in opinion about who should decide what to do with the billionaires' money - elected officials or billionaires. Fixed that for you.
      • HiLo 11y ago
        Actually, the Treasury funds itself by issuing bonds to the dealer banks or the Fed, where its account is then credited. Taxes are used as inflation control or to incentivize certain activities. What you're suggesting is that Treasury would have a cash flow problem if people payed less taxes, which isn't the case. Although you could start to see an inflation problem.
        • dragonwriter 11y ago
          > Actually, the Treasury funds itself by issuing bonds to the dealer banks or the Fed, where its account is then credited Its ability to sell bonds is controlled by the markets perception of its ability to pay those bonds, which is tied to a number of factors including, inter alia, its perceived ability, willingness, and track record of revenue sources with which to pay them. People paying less taxes directly effects that.
  • thomnottom 11y ago
    That's not what the article said at all - nor the German billionaire. He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. You may disagree with that, but it is quite different from simply saying public good and private bad.
    • Afforess 11y ago
      > He said that having a few very wealthy people decide what were the most important causes was bad compared to having the democratically elected government decide. This sentence is really amusing to me, because our democratically elected government, at least at the congressional level, is nearly all wealthy millionaires. So either way, important causes are decided by the wealthy.
      • maxmzd_ 11y ago
        While that is true, and a problem, it doesn't make the point of the article any less valid. If anything, you are agreeing with it now.
      • username223 11y ago
        Congressmen are mostly rich people rented by richer ones, but a small amount of plebian influence is surely better than none at all if you're into that whole "democracy" thing.
        • deleted 11y ago
          [deleted]
        • dorfsmay 11y ago
          In terms of how to spend "extra money", I would have agreed with you before Bill Gates' foundation delivered result few governments ever did. Heck, I'm in Alberta where we've had a government returning taxes when we had budget surplus... just before the election.
          • deleted 11y ago
  • Retric 11y ago
    Private charities have on average been terribly inefficient in the US. However, in terms of Conspicuous consumption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption) they are better than building ever larger boats.
    • Afforess 11y ago
      I think the key question is whether private charities are more or less efficient relative to governments, not whether they are efficient in an absolute sense.
      • Retric 11y ago
        You’re assuming government spending would increase 1:1 which might be true, but is not guaranteed.
    • moistgorilla 11y ago
      do you have a source for that statement and does that source take into account the basically fraudulent "charities" that exist to pay their ceos
    • stillsut 11y ago
      In fact, it would be declasse to be seen on a mega yacht except if it was for a charity gala. Yacht is of course owned by charity, which is owned by... well you know who. But you gotta spend money to give money!
  • anon4 11y ago
    There is no real explanation for why the article is "bad" except for the tired argument that private foundations imitating the state are good and the state is bad. There is no further clarification or explanation; We are supposed to accept this as some sort of given, without pretext or afterthought. Comments like this are bad.
  • knughit 11y ago
    Articles that lead with a headline "Why", instead of just stating their thesis, are clickbait garbage.
  • mmaunder 11y ago
    It also implies that there are no taxes in the USA i.e. no revenue whatsoever for the government to dedicate to social programs. Total government revenue in the USA (Federal and state) for 2014 was $5.8 Trillion. The question arises: How would the government be able to "give" Zuckerberg's fortune rather than him giving it himself? Through extremely high taxation for the wealthy that would take away the lion's share of his billions so that the government can put it to work more effectively. So what? 90% tax rate on the megarich? Government isn't known for it's efficiency in spending or giving. I'm left leaning, but we don't need to give the government new ways to not spend money where it's needed.
  • s73v3r 11y ago
    I have a say in what state agencies do. I have absolutely no say in what a private foundation does.
• jey 11y ago
  This guy takes it as a given that the Government is well-run and wise. But what's the practical alternative for someone who instead thinks that the current political environment is toxic and insane?
  • HiLo 11y ago
    You take it as a given that the private sector is well-run and wise. Nobody is saying either solution is great. All it's saying is that: wouldn't it be better to have all this power be in the hands of the democratically chosen, versus billionaires who may or may not be making relevant investments? edit: Just downvotes, no response?
    • RHSeeger 11y ago
      I take it as a given that, when a private individual uses their money, at least one person probably thought the way it was used was a good idea. I do not take it as a given that, when the government spends money, anyone thought how it was spent was a good idea (like spending 8 billion dollars to design a tank... yes, that's billions, with a "b" (also, I love that movie))
      • HiLo 11y ago
        This is such a retarded argument. How did it get into the budget if nobody thought it was a good idea? Do you know how much of a fight it is to get anything in there at all? Furthermore, all you're doing is cherry picking data points to support your argument without factoring in that military and medical equipment all have huge, onerous requirements for tracking every step of the supply chain, to the mine the metal came out of, which makes cost structures very weird. What about the Manhattan Project, or the Hoover Dam, or the Interstate System. Bad investments? See, I can cherry pick too.
      • merpnderp 11y ago
        Well the parasitic corporate/government relationship thought it was a good idea. But few hosts care to listen to the votes of their parasites. And it wasn't really a tank, but some sort of useless hybrid designed to maximize the number of US casualties in any conflict with a modern army. I kid, that's just the side effect of maximizing the amount of graft which flowed into the companies involved and then back into the hands of the politicians involved.
• HiLo 11y ago
  Krämer: So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow? SPIEGEL: It is their money at the end of the day. Krämer: In this case, 40 superwealthy people want to decide what their money will be used for. That runs counter to the democratically legitimate state. In the end the billionaires are indulging in hobbies that might be in the common good, but are very personal. ... "There’s nothing necessarily wrong with the American system of tax-subsidized charity, of course." "The critique is that this system affords too much power to the rich, whose decisions may not align with what’s best for society. This is not to say that the government is a paragon of efficacy either, but it risks a lot to depend on a handful of mega-billionaires to be prudent, effective philanthropists." "What genre of philanthropy will Chan and Zuckerberg invest in? Possibly anything. Their letter Tuesday set two missions, both ambitiously vague: “advancing human potential” and “promoting equality." They mention curing diseases, improving clean energy, promoting entrepreneurship, fighting poverty and hunger, empowering women and minorities, and so on. The pair do not have a sterling track record when it comes to effective charity. One of their previous efforts, a high-profile $100 million donation to fix the schools in Newark, N.J., has been widely criticized as a failure. Chan and Zuckerberg write in their announcement that they have learned from their past experiences with philanthropy. For now, they will start with their own community in San Francisco, focusing on education, health and “connecting people.”
  • merpnderp 11y ago
    You make it sound like Zuckerberg's donation in Newark happened in a vacuum. It happened in tight collaboration with the school system, who stated needs and approved every step of the process. It's not like Zuckerberg stepped in and said "you shall obey!!!" Course in this case it just turned out that not only could the democratically elected government of Newark magically waste all their tax revenue, they were excellent at wasting donated money.
    • 6stringmerc 11y ago
      I do find it rather disheartening that a tech inventor and a PhD in Biology are being looked to as legitimate critics and saviors of public education.
• deleted 11y ago
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• snorrah 11y ago
  Article suggests the Chan Zuckerberg initiative is non-profit, but I'm reading from multiple other sources that is definitely not the case. Not sure who's right, but if it's not WaPo, then that's some terrible fact checking and kinda invalidates the whole article. Edit - Chan Zuckerberg is a for profit, that will fund non profits, so WaPo is actually incorrect.
  • steveklabnik 11y ago
    I don't think that level of detail is publicly available yet. And even non-profits start out as an LLC, and then gain that designation, so that _could_ be what's happening here.
• radicalbyte 11y ago
  The problem with the American system isn't the culture of direct donations from private individuals. The problem is that too few people have the means to give: it's the distribution of wealth. A culture where private people donate is really attractive. I know that I get a lot of joy when I help people out - I donate regularly to the causes I feel important (mainly Africa, as a Brit living in Netherlands I figure I owe them). As the article says, it improves social cohesion. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where "everyone" enjoyed the gift of giving?
  • merpnderp 11y ago
    In the US a lot of people who aren't billionaires or even millionaires donate a lot of money. And people donate a lot of time to their causes. http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/ http://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-gi... http://nccs.urban.org/nccs/statistics/Charitable-Giving-in-America-Some-Facts-and-Figures.cfm http://nccs.urban.org/nccs/statistics/Charitable-Giving-in-A...
  • zo1 11y ago
    "Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where "everyone" enjoyed the gift of giving?" I fully agree with this, even though I completely disagree with the concept of taxation. If you have to have taxation to somehow collectively pay for the things society supposedly "needs", then have everyone pay for it. We are, after all, in the same boat, so we should all pay for it. And when I say everyone, I really mean everyone that has any income. Though, to be fair, I live in a society where something close to 90% (the bottom-most earners) don't pay any income-tax at all. And stuff, society and government function. Sort of.
• deleted 11y ago
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• lloyddobbler 11y ago
  > 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 of jobs for families and individuals, and made a fortune, why should the state be the one who decides what happens with your money? Why should the state have more of a right to decide which causes get your charitable donations than you do?
  • HiLo 11y ago
    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. Nobody is saying they shouldn't be richly rewarded, just that it's gotten fucking ridiculous.
    • marknutter 11y ago
      > 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 the "system". Everyone is compensated in the building of a business, in exactly the amounts they demand to be compensated. The government gets its taxes, the employees get their salaries and benefits, the shareholders get their equity, and the founder(s) get(s) the rest. At that point, everyone is squared. Risk is appropriately rewarded, and risk is an absolute requirement if you want great things to happen.
      • HiLo 11y ago
        I could say the same about your black and white thinking using outdated Chicago/Neoclassic economic theories when applied to aggregate economies, but I digress. I didn't say they were built on the charity of the system, just that they were built using the system. You act like the first 50 employees of your stupid app company aren't taking a risk too. But they get 0.01%, while the founders get...? Fairly early on, you literally don't have enough time in a day to do it all yourself, even if you wanted to, so you're quite literally taking credit for more risk than you were actually able to take. Considering Paul Graham's essay about how most of the work is ahead of you even when you start adding employees, how is the risk so skewed towards initial conditions versus the long path ahead? This toxic thinking that a twentysomething takes more risk by trying to start his own company while early in his career deserves orders of magnitude better compensation for the risk he took, over many career people that will have to be persuaded to risk their career and reputations on this new company, who have families, mortgages, and serious obligations to others? He really took 1,000x more risk? Bullshit dude.
• jessriedel 11y ago
  Anyone who thinks that the federal government will spend money better than a charity is free to give it to the IRS. They accept donation. But no one believes this is a good idea, as evidenced by the fact that such donations are many orders of magnitude less than Americans donate to charity.
  • mnx 11y ago
    This is a really important point to make. The government may be democratically elected, but that doesn't mean that much, because of how the political system works. When people have the choice directly, they don't vote for the government. Also, comparing track records, the government has a really bad one when it comes to actually helping the poor, not just giving them enough money not to die.
• radicalbyte 11y ago
  I would be very interested in seeing what percentage of the "social" donations are going to "Religious" organizations, per country.
  • bmmayer1 11y ago
    Just because an organization is religious doesn't mean it can't provide social benefit. The air quotes seem unnecessary.
• Maultasche 11y ago
  Perhaps the German government can make good decisions about where to spend money, since I know they put lots of money into science and culture, but I wouldn't trust the US Congress to do the same. The US federal government is far more likely blow it all on the military weapons systems or funding tax cuts that benefit the wealthy rather than funding guinea worm eradication or anti-malaria initiatives in Africa. The typical US congressman is unwilling to spend money altruistically on things that aren't perceived as directly benefiting the United States. Sure, billionaires aren't saints either, but I think it's far more likely that they'll donate to causes that are geared toward having a positive long-term impact on humanity as a whole.
• Kinnard 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670604
• shmerl 11y ago
  > It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. Complaining about that is missing the forest behind the trees. With Citizens United and general ineptitude of the legislative branch to produce any significant fixes to the system, that power is long transferred.
• BjoernKW 11y ago
  Yeah, rather leave that money to the state who will spend it on actually useful things such as new wars that will make the military-industrial complex even wealthier. This kind of thinking unfortunately is common in continental Europe, particularly in Germany and France. This is not all about the common good or democratic legitimacy. It's really all about redistribution of wealth and getting back at "the rich". It's about slave-moral thinking that strives to punish the well-off and make everyone feel equally miserable.
• rwmj 11y ago
  This is JWZ's opinion (in strong terms): https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/12/zuckerberg-has-not-donated-anything-you-gullible-credulous-pinheads/ https://www.jwz.org/blog/2015/12/zuckerberg-has-not-donated-...
• mynameishere 11y ago
  It depends on what you like. Many people are probably happy that organizations like the Ford Foundation will advocate globalist left-wing anti-Americanism forever. Bill and Warren and Mark's money will do the same as well, no matter their intentions. O'Sullivan's law. There's no point in arguing about whether the state is better suited to handle the money. It would actually be better off cashed out, piled up, and burnt. Literally. A tiny deflationary event vs. eternal troublemaking.
  • kuschku 11y ago
    I’ll just let you know that without the money spent by the German government you wouldn’t have mp3, or AAC. You wouldn’t have most of modern technology, nor would you have Wendelstein 7-X. You wouldn’t have DHL or T-Mobile. Sure, they waste lots of money (BER, S21, Elbphilharmonie), but still they manage it better than the private sector ever could. The top politicians earn less than the managers of any company at that size — Merkel earns 216'000€ a year. The CEO of even middle-sized companies end up making far more than that.
    • pyvpx 11y ago
      uhh, DHL was started by three folks in California.
      • kuschku 11y ago
        And is owned by Deutsche Post nowadays, a German governmental entity.
• damosneeze 11y ago
  > It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. And who owns the state? Last I checked, it was billionaires.
• jstalin 11y ago
  Politicians should decide how your money is spent, not you.
  • kuschku 11y ago
    Voters should decide how taxes are spent, not billionaires who evade taxes.
    • thatswrong0 11y ago
      Tax avoidance =/= tax evasion. One is legal, one is not.
      • kuschku 11y ago
        One of them is breaking the law, the other is working around it – but the intention is the same.
        • thatswrong0 11y ago
          Not in my mind - no one pays more tax than they need to. Are we saying that every person in the country has the same intention as illegal tax evaders? It's hypocritical to point out someone who is avoiding tax just because they are doing it on a larger scale than you unless you voluntarily pay more taxes to the government than you need to.
• arasmussen 11y ago
  I personally trust Mark Zuckerberg more then I trust our government with the money. I think it will go a lot farther. I wouldn't say that about every billionaire though.
• jeffdavis 11y ago
  The trade is this: if you made $100 and your marginal tax rate is 20%, you can either (a) let the government spend $20 however it sees fit and you spend $80 however you see fit (which may be an $80 bottle of wine); or (b) you spend $100 on any charitable cause you see fit (which must meet certain requirements). That doesn't seem like a bad trade to me, especially since rich people have fairly low marginal tax rates.
  • kuschku 11y ago
    And that’s how the US ends up with horrible roads, transit quality going down, and so on.
    • jeffdavis 11y ago
      The roads are pretty good around my area. Maybe that's because I voted for a small local tax increase for that purpose. Assuming your correct, it probably has a lot of other contributing factors. The federal government gets by far the largest share of tax revenue, but a lot of transportation issues are felt more at the state and local level. I doubt transportation problems are due to a lack of federal tax revenue. Keep in mind most governments in the world are smaller than a big US state. Incentives and priorities get distorted a lot when you have one entity responsible for trillions of dollars of annual expenditures.
    • sliverstorm 11y ago
      Terrible roads seem far too local of a problem to be due to philanthropic billionaires diverting wealth. Quality seems to vary distinctly by county or city; I once lived near a city line where the line was demarcated by the abrupt transition from flawless asphalt to a minefield of potholes. Neither was a particularly famous, wealthy, or powerful county, and neither had resident billionaires. No, I'm more suspicious of measures like California's Prop 13, as well as county and city level management.
      • kuschku 11y ago
        Well, tax loopholes in general lead to less taxes. Which leads to budget cuts. For example, look what happened in the UK: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/david-cameron-letter-cuts-oxfordshire http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/david-c...
• narrator 11y ago
  50 billion dollars is about 1/2 the budget of the State of California for a year. It's really not that much in terms of government expenditures. However, If used creatively, it could have a huge impact on the world, but that takes vision. Money without creativity and vision does nothing except raise the price of everything.
  • Veedrac 11y ago
    Precisely. The article hasn't been justifying the claim that large charitable donations are bad; it has being justifying the claim that not taxing charitable donations is bad. But I'm not inclined to believe that, since I can reasonably believe that the increase in charitable giving from not having the tax is more significant than the gain from having the government control 20% or so of it.
• lispm 11y ago
  One of the arguments here in Germany is that if these billionaires were actually paying taxes, the country would have more money and there would be less to pledge. Generally the thinking is that public sector should run many basic services and should provide/organize enough welfare to those in need.
• ucha 11y ago
  The maximum estate tax rate in the US is 40%. Sure, donations are tax free, but the donated assets amount to at least 2.5 times what the government would have gotten. Is it acceptable to have the privilege to choose where your fortune will be allocated when you give away a supplemental 150% of it? Maybe it's not or maybe it is; I would strongly lean towards the latter.
• skybrian 11y ago
  The argument doesn't make much sense to me. Each government is basically a single decision-maker that already has a very large budget. Just by watching the news, we know these decisions aren't always all that rational (though democratic!). Giving more money to a government doesn't increase diversity of funding sources at all. Starting another large foundation creates a new source of funding with an independent decision-making process. This increases diversity in sources of funding. (Though not as much as breaking it up into multiple charities.) Whether it's a net improvement or not depends on whether their decision-making is better than average. Unfortunately, little can be done about charities with poor decision-making (there are no market forces, and corruption is possible). But at least it's independent.
• cjbenedikt 11y ago
  There are two trains of thought in the comment section: one that argues because the billionaire made the money himself (unless he/she inherited it) he/she should be entitled to distribute it and the other that he/she may be better positioned to do so than the state. You can argue that the billionaire was only able to make so much money because the country/state he/she lives in provided the necessary infrastructure and environment. Paid for by the tax payer. As Warren Buffett famously said:"Had I been less fortunate and be borne in another country I probably would have become lion fodder." Hence, he/she should pay his taxes as a payback to the taxpayer. You can also argue that the billionaire, because he/she is so successful, must be better in determining what to do with his/her money than the state. However, research suggests that many successful entrepreneurs had significant luck (as Buffett's quote suggests too). Take successful hedge fund managers for example. It also runs against the idea of Democracy. Because if you follow through with this line of thought you may well abolish any elections and leave it to the billionaires to decide who rules - which is almost the case in the US, isn't it?
  • abandonliberty 11y ago
    Tangent: >leave it to the billionaires to decide who rules - which is almost the case in the US, isn't it? I realized a few years ago that this is the end result in any organization, but some German beat me to it in 1911. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy >Michels theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies.
• basaah 11y ago
  Someone recently suggested this book [1] to me. I'm still reading it, but enjoying the ride so far. The 'shift of power away from the government' argument is just one of the arguments made in the book, and author Linsey McGoey discusses it much more thoroughly than the article does. See quote /a/ [1] http://www.versobooks.com/books/1959-no-such-thing-as-a-free-gift http://www.versobooks.com/books/1959-no-such-thing-as-a-free... /a/ The second concern is that philanthropy, by channelling private funds towards public services, erodes support for governmental spending on health and education. Outspoken observers such as Michael Edwards, a former executive at the Ford Foundation, point out that private philanthropy is no substitution for hard-fought battles over labour laws and social security, in part because philanthropy can be retracted on a whim, while elected officials, at least in theory, have citizens to answer to.
• mmaunder 11y ago
  I'm curious why this dropped completely off the home page? Do posts get nixed by mods? If so, why this one? [I don't really care, just curious about the HN moderation process]
  • nkurz 11y ago
    I'd appreciate if Dan would chime in, but I think it likely triggered the "Flamewar Detector". I think this is based on a ratio of Upvotes to Comments, possibly adjusted by flags, but I don't think it's been fully described. This isn't a perfect system, as sometimes contentious conversation can be better than non-discussion. But overall it's probably a good to have a temporary throttle until a moderator can make finer grained fixes.
• exelius 11y ago
  IMO both have their merits. Governments are good at solving broad, societal level problems. If they weren't, they would be overthrown and replaced. But they're remarkably inefficient at solving individual, specific problems: they can do it, but it will take 4x as long and cost 10x as much as it should. Also, government intervention is limited in scope - it's hard to be philanthropic outside your constituency. That's where philanthropists can step in. There are some problems that don't provide enough benefit to any single government to throw weight behind solving, but that require massive resources. Bill Gates' anti-malaria campaign is a good example: no country with the money to fund a malaria eradication program has significant rates of malaria.
• Tiktaalik 11y ago
  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?
• amai 11y ago
  Peter Krämer is actually also one of the few billionaires who is in favor of reintroducing a high wealth tax in Germany.