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It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. It's not a great way of encouraging charity.

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. It's not a great way of encouraging charity. If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior.

ubernostrum 8y ago
If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. The argument people tend to make here is that the net change he's creating in the world is not for the better. If 1,000 people have to suffer misery because of his company in order to enable 10 people to get the benefit of his personal charity, that doesn't look like "making the world a better place" to many of us.
point78 8y ago
One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens.
- kowdermeister 8y ago
  So we should put a gap on wealth and redistribute it beyond that in a fair way?
  - onion2k 8y ago
    Yes. And we do exactly that through taxation. A portion of Jeff Bezos' fortune is derived from Amazon's ability to increase it's profits by (legal, and arguably justifiable) tax avoidance. That's part of global business these days, but it's not unreasonable for people in regions where Amazon minimizes it's tax costs to say Bezos is doing something bad for them.
    - point78 8y ago
      You mean how Amazon is being sued for hundreds of millions in the EU for dodging taxes? And the US is probably the worst example in the western world on how taxation should work. Case in point is this ridiculous idea that what Bezos is doing here should be applauded and not fixed for being broken.
    - lucideer 8y ago
      > arguably justifiable Very curious about these justification arguments. How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy?
      - onion2k 8y ago
        How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy? The defence is more about remaining competitive in a global market than anything to do with how the owners spend their fortunes.
      - ti_ranger 8y ago
        > Very curious about these justification arguments. How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy? One topic (tax avoidance) is by one entity (AMZN) who has obligations and responsibilities towards shareholders (including most employees), where the other is by a different entity (Jeff Bezos) using his own wealth (that resulted from AMZN). Jeff Bezos can't use AMZN assets as he sees fit, otherwise the SEC will investigate him, but he can do so with his own assets. If you want the behaviour of companies to change, you need to have your politicians use their powers to do the right things ... Capitalism isn't there to fix broken democracy, democracy is supposed to limit capitalism ...
        lucideer 8y ago
        > Capitalism isn't there to fix broken democracy, democracy is supposed to limit capitalism I completely agree in terms of how to practically go about fixing the problems, but we're not discussing that here. You're right that broken democracy fails to limit capitalism; this allows people without moral limits to exploit, and make large gains from said exploitation. And you're right that fixing that system is what's needed. But lauding those who have exploited that absence of limits, for their apparent morals, is what's being discussed in this thread.
- Silhouette 8y ago
  One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens. I think that would be a more compelling argument if our governments had a stronger democratic mandate and our political systems offered the people genuine choices in how money was being spent on their behalf. Looking at what's been happening in places like the US and UK recently, I'm not sure it's the best time to be arguing for big government and redistribution of wealth as a vehicle for social responsibility.
  - point78 8y ago
    US and UK should be using other governments as examples that get it right. The answer to your problem is most definitely not to reduce taxes and Let billionares decide what goes where.
lucideer 8y ago
The primary purpose of criticising the charitable work of the very rich over, say, similarly wealthy people who aren't philanthropic, is that it is a form of PR. As other commenters mention, Bezo's overall contributions to the world are a net negative, but it's not just the his philanthropy doesn't make up for his other negative activities, it's that it also acts as a way of soliciting public forgiveness for the other indescretions, which shouldn't be accepted.
- gomox 8y ago
  By what measure are Bezos' contributions a net negative?
  - lucideer 8y ago
    Unless you believe that commerce is a goal in itself, and that building a successful business contributes positively to the world by default (I'm sure many people do believe this so just getting it out of the way), then you have to look at the outputs. For Amazon that's largely: - extremely poor pay and conditions for Amazon's workers - dominance driving smaller less-efficient enterprises out of business; this isn't just sentimental: efficiency is about driving cost down, including labour costs. SMEs employ more in aggregate than the large businesses replacing them, so typically Amazon is unlikely to be a net job-creator. - Amazon pays very little corporate tax, both by running low-profit/high-cashflow, through other methods particularly for it's operations in Europe, and they used to evade sales tax almost completely in the US. Tax = vital public and social services for citizens, so that's a big net negative. - Jeff Bezos' personal tax story is not dissimilar. etc. etc. This isn't a criticism of Bezos or Amazon, but of large multinational corporate entities and their contributions to "charitable" causes in general. CSR is always an a attempt to offset something.
    - Isinlor 8y ago
      I'm curious, did any company ever contributed overall to a society in your opinion? "extremely poor pay and conditions for Amazon's workers" Where should Amazon magically create this money from? It can only come at the expense of customers. "so typically Amazon is unlikely to be a net job-creator." That's a net positive. Less work, the same job done. Making more work is easy, just let people throw rocks from one pile to the other and back again. "Tax = vital public and social services for citizens, so that's a big net negative." They may not contribute by not paying taxes, but 0 contribution is not negative contribution.
onion2k 8y ago
It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. Spending money on good causes is great. That's to be definitely something to be encouraged. Putting all of the decision making about which causes are 'good' in the hands of one individual, or a small group of very similar individuals, is very, very bad. That's how entire segments of society get ignored.
- TheTrotters 8y ago
  US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Bezos has just donated 2 million. If that’s really your concern then you should try to keep things in perspective.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ti_ranger 8y ago
    > US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Bezos has just donated 2 million. If that’s really your concern then you should try to keep things in perspective. I think you mean 2 billion.
    - TheTrotters 8y ago
      Yes, of course, you're right.
- MrEfficiency 8y ago
  How small is this group? I find myself solving problems with capitalism and simultaneously donating 5-10% of my net-income. I also dont see life being any worse than 'before' for any classes. 'before' being 15 years ago.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  To me it seems like philanthropists generally do a much better job spending money well than our government does. They don't tend to use it to bomb other countries, they often consider the lives of foreigners as important as the lives of Americans, and being able to ignore pork barrel considerations makes their projects more efficient. The money spent by philanthropists is small compared to the US budget so they aren't in any way a replacement for the welfare state. But what money they do spend seems to go a long way.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
> It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. "Extreme taking and extreme giving" is what kings, emperors and other tyrants did (and still do). A billionaire can give away 99.9% of his/her earnings every month but s/he is acquiring extreme power in exchange. Being able to control the money tap is power. > It's not a great way of encouraging charity. Good. That's what taxation or other forms of redistribution are for. Contrarily to charity, it does not create patrons/heros/tyrants
- TheTrotters 8y ago
  US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Caifornia’s 2018 budget is ~200 billion. Bezos has just donated two billion. Keep things in perspective.
- mhaymo 8y ago
  I think you'll find that many famous tyrants were funded by taxes.
philwelch 8y ago
The real problem is that some people don’t actually want the poor to the better off, they just want the rich to be worse off.
zamalek 8y ago
> Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior. Exactly, if philanthropy is self-serving then what does that make the act of dissuading such behavior? People seem to get involved with the argument rather than outcomes nowadays. A frequent argument is that "Bezos should pay his taxes because I do." While I do feel as though it's unfair that I loose more of my "living money" to taxes, I don't forget for one second what those taxes are doing: waging wars over fossil fuels and progressing climate change. Who cares if the cause is personal glory; if the effect is a better world? I'd rather have the unfairness of ego-charitable billionaire tax avoidance than the two-term shortsightedness of politician power mongering.

ubernostrum 8y ago

If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. The argument people tend to make here is that the net change he's creating in the world is not for the better. If 1,000 people have to suffer misery because of his company in order to enable 10 people to get the benefit of his personal charity, that doesn't look like "making the world a better place" to many of us.

point78 8y ago

One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens.

kowdermeister 8y ago
So we should put a gap on wealth and redistribute it beyond that in a fair way?
- onion2k 8y ago
  Yes. And we do exactly that through taxation. A portion of Jeff Bezos' fortune is derived from Amazon's ability to increase it's profits by (legal, and arguably justifiable) tax avoidance. That's part of global business these days, but it's not unreasonable for people in regions where Amazon minimizes it's tax costs to say Bezos is doing something bad for them.
  - point78 8y ago
    You mean how Amazon is being sued for hundreds of millions in the EU for dodging taxes? And the US is probably the worst example in the western world on how taxation should work. Case in point is this ridiculous idea that what Bezos is doing here should be applauded and not fixed for being broken.
  - lucideer 8y ago
    > arguably justifiable Very curious about these justification arguments. How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy?
    - onion2k 8y ago
      How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy? The defence is more about remaining competitive in a global market than anything to do with how the owners spend their fortunes.
    - ti_ranger 8y ago
      > Very curious about these justification arguments. How on earth is tax-avoidance defensible in a thread about philanthropy? One topic (tax avoidance) is by one entity (AMZN) who has obligations and responsibilities towards shareholders (including most employees), where the other is by a different entity (Jeff Bezos) using his own wealth (that resulted from AMZN). Jeff Bezos can't use AMZN assets as he sees fit, otherwise the SEC will investigate him, but he can do so with his own assets. If you want the behaviour of companies to change, you need to have your politicians use their powers to do the right things ... Capitalism isn't there to fix broken democracy, democracy is supposed to limit capitalism ...
      - lucideer 8y ago
        > Capitalism isn't there to fix broken democracy, democracy is supposed to limit capitalism I completely agree in terms of how to practically go about fixing the problems, but we're not discussing that here. You're right that broken democracy fails to limit capitalism; this allows people without moral limits to exploit, and make large gains from said exploitation. And you're right that fixing that system is what's needed. But lauding those who have exploited that absence of limits, for their apparent morals, is what's being discussed in this thread.
Silhouette 8y ago
One person should not choose where and to what social services need funding. That's why we have government and not kings and queens. I think that would be a more compelling argument if our governments had a stronger democratic mandate and our political systems offered the people genuine choices in how money was being spent on their behalf. Looking at what's been happening in places like the US and UK recently, I'm not sure it's the best time to be arguing for big government and redistribution of wealth as a vehicle for social responsibility.
- point78 8y ago
  US and UK should be using other governments as examples that get it right. The answer to your problem is most definitely not to reduce taxes and Let billionares decide what goes where.

lucideer 8y ago

The primary purpose of criticising the charitable work of the very rich over, say, similarly wealthy people who aren't philanthropic, is that it is a form of PR. As other commenters mention, Bezo's overall contributions to the world are a net negative, but it's not just the his philanthropy doesn't make up for his other negative activities, it's that it also acts as a way of soliciting public forgiveness for the other indescretions, which shouldn't be accepted.

gomox 8y ago
By what measure are Bezos' contributions a net negative?
- lucideer 8y ago
  Unless you believe that commerce is a goal in itself, and that building a successful business contributes positively to the world by default (I'm sure many people do believe this so just getting it out of the way), then you have to look at the outputs. For Amazon that's largely: - extremely poor pay and conditions for Amazon's workers - dominance driving smaller less-efficient enterprises out of business; this isn't just sentimental: efficiency is about driving cost down, including labour costs. SMEs employ more in aggregate than the large businesses replacing them, so typically Amazon is unlikely to be a net job-creator. - Amazon pays very little corporate tax, both by running low-profit/high-cashflow, through other methods particularly for it's operations in Europe, and they used to evade sales tax almost completely in the US. Tax = vital public and social services for citizens, so that's a big net negative. - Jeff Bezos' personal tax story is not dissimilar. etc. etc. This isn't a criticism of Bezos or Amazon, but of large multinational corporate entities and their contributions to "charitable" causes in general. CSR is always an a attempt to offset something.
  - Isinlor 8y ago
    I'm curious, did any company ever contributed overall to a society in your opinion? "extremely poor pay and conditions for Amazon's workers" Where should Amazon magically create this money from? It can only come at the expense of customers. "so typically Amazon is unlikely to be a net job-creator." That's a net positive. Less work, the same job done. Making more work is easy, just let people throw rocks from one pile to the other and back again. "Tax = vital public and social services for citizens, so that's a big net negative." They may not contribute by not paying taxes, but 0 contribution is not negative contribution.

onion2k 8y ago

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. Spending money on good causes is great. That's to be definitely something to be encouraged. Putting all of the decision making about which causes are 'good' in the hands of one individual, or a small group of very similar individuals, is very, very bad. That's how entire segments of society get ignored.

TheTrotters 8y ago
US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Bezos has just donated 2 million. If that’s really your concern then you should try to keep things in perspective.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ti_ranger 8y ago
  > US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Bezos has just donated 2 million. If that’s really your concern then you should try to keep things in perspective. I think you mean 2 billion.
  - TheTrotters 8y ago
    Yes, of course, you're right.
MrEfficiency 8y ago
How small is this group? I find myself solving problems with capitalism and simultaneously donating 5-10% of my net-income. I also dont see life being any worse than 'before' for any classes. 'before' being 15 years ago.
Symmetry 8y ago
To me it seems like philanthropists generally do a much better job spending money well than our government does. They don't tend to use it to bomb other countries, they often consider the lives of foreigners as important as the lives of Americans, and being able to ignore pork barrel considerations makes their projects more efficient. The money spent by philanthropists is small compared to the US budget so they aren't in any way a replacement for the welfare state. But what money they do spend seems to go a long way.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

> It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. "Extreme taking and extreme giving" is what kings, emperors and other tyrants did (and still do). A billionaire can give away 99.9% of his/her earnings every month but s/he is acquiring extreme power in exchange. Being able to control the money tap is power. > It's not a great way of encouraging charity. Good. That's what taxation or other forms of redistribution are for. Contrarily to charity, it does not create patrons/heros/tyrants

TheTrotters 8y ago
US federal budget for 2018 is ~4 trillion. Caifornia’s 2018 budget is ~200 billion. Bezos has just donated two billion. Keep things in perspective.
mhaymo 8y ago
I think you'll find that many famous tyrants were funded by taxes.

philwelch 8y ago

The real problem is that some people don’t actually want the poor to the better off, they just want the rich to be worse off.

zamalek 8y ago

> Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior. Exactly, if philanthropy is self-serving then what does that make the act of dissuading such behavior? People seem to get involved with the argument rather than outcomes nowadays. A frequent argument is that "Bezos should pay his taxes because I do." While I do feel as though it's unfair that I loose more of my "living money" to taxes, I don't forget for one second what those taxes are doing: waging wars over fossil fuels and progressing climate change. Who cares if the cause is personal glory; if the effect is a better world? I'd rather have the unfairness of ego-charitable billionaire tax avoidance than the two-term shortsightedness of politician power mongering.