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"The Gates foundation directs a large amount of resources not to "prudent economic decisions" (eg, it looses money), but to non economic priorities he set." Th
by ganonm 8y ago
"The Gates foundation directs a large amount of resources not to "prudent economic decisions" (eg, it looses money), but to non economic priorities he set."
This is true, and although certainly not a bad thing, is perhaps a sub-optimal allocation of economic output. There is perhaps an argument for having individuals with enough power to do this as a means of making decisions that are sub-optimal in the here and now, but over long enough spans of time turn out to be optimum. Another example would be investing in renewable energies.
- gizmo686 8y agoThe two pricipled ways I have heard for determining resource allocation are democracy and markets. Private philanthropy follows neither. As I alluded to above, there are certainly practical benifits of private philanthropy, as our democratic institutions are systematically bad at certain classes of problems.