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it's capitalism at is best you start a company in your garage take it to be worth Bilions an then give it all away, doesn't get better than this.
by elmar 9y ago
it's capitalism at is best you start a company in your garage take it to be worth Bilions an then give it all away, doesn't get better than this.
- F_r_k 9y agoWhat's the link with capitalism ?
- elmar 9y agoCapitalism as in the private accumulation of large sums of capital.
- ouid 9y agoif you give away your large sums of capital, then it isn't the accumulation of large sums of capital anymore, and therefore isn't capitalism.
- pc86 9y agoCharity is very much a part of capitalism, if you want it to be. That's sort of the point. The choice of being able to keep your money or donate v. the requirement to give away most/all of what you earn to the state.
- nebabyte 9y agoCharity is neither unique to capitalism nor a testament to it working. It's rather a monkey-patch fix to make it look more viable than it is - people think everything's fine as long as a few "heroes" donate.
- cutler 9y agoNot necessarily. Depends who you cked over along the way, including your workers. Not saying this applies to Bill, though.
- ta23231 9y agoYou missed the 90's I see. The guy is a ruthless, greedy arsehole.
- gjm11 9y agoThere's a good argument that he was in the 1990s. That doesn't mean he is one now. People change. But let's suppose for a moment that he was one, and he hasn't changed, and he still is a terrible person underneath. Does that make the people who would have got malaria but didn't because of the Gates Foundation's efforts any sicker? Or, contrariwise, consider some area where it turns out that the work of the Gates Foundation has done harm as well as good. Education seems like it might be an example. Let's suppose that in fact Gates is a total saint, motivated by nothing but pure benevolence. Does that make someone whose education was worsened by the foundation's activities any better educated? I find I don't really care very much whether Gates is a good person, for any particular definition of "good". I care about the effects of what he does. Maybe he's giving his money away to make himself look good, or for a bet, or because he hopes it will placate an angry Microsoft-hating god, or something. Who cares? What matters is what actually happens as a result of his giving that money away. On the whole, that's looking pretty good.
- cutler 9y agoMissed the 90s? Not really. With psychotherapy I've almost recovered from years of testing IE4-6 incompatibilities.
- mfoy_ 9y agoI don't think you can really conflate capitalism with philanthropy like that. They're just... different things. "Capitalism at it's best" isn't people giving away money... it's people being competitively compensated for their contributions to society-- the ability to take risks and reap the rewards. Of course then you can argue that tax is a way to enforce a minimal amount of philanthropy onto people, forcing them to contribute to the greater good whether they want to or not... but people who seem to be very vocally in favour of pure capitalism also seem to be very vocally against high taxes.
- rusk 9y ago*it's people being competitively compensated for their contributions to society* Sorry to nitpick .. you're describing meritocracy I think, as envisaged by free-market economics (which is entirely reasonable - to a point). Capitalism isn't so much the emergent market behaviour as a system that provides a means to create and develop wealth (i.e. capital). The labour market is one aspect of this, but it's not exclusively tied to it. *Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism