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Required reading for anyone making this criticism: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2

Required reading for anyone making this criticism: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billionaire-philanthropy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio... It's worth reading that entire well-reasoned and well-researched post, but the tl;dr is that many billionaire philanthropists do a lot more good per dollar spent than the government and they get problems solved that government is often incapable of solving. Plus, a sizeable portion of every tax dollar goes to the military, so tax minimization helps reduce how much goes to the war machine.

munk-a 7y ago
Funding the military is, irrationally, politically untouchable in America. Both parties have let the military-industrial complex deeply embed itself into the political process and need to toe the line when it comes to the very powerful defense lobbying groups. That said society at large generally approves to good pay and equipment for troops while being less enthusiastic for military research and stock purchases - this is a bit contradictory since folks want troops in a war to have good stocks but don't approve of spending money on maintaining equipment during peacetime. The sort of TL;DR here is that America being the world police isn't something the public approves of and I think it'd be more efficient to pursue addressing this point then hanging your hopes on billionaires. The utter fascination and praise of billionaires is an extremely toxic[1] spin off from general American Exceptionalism which has done quite a lot of damage to... well... Americans actually being exceptional. 1. In my opinion - how you view the effect of this on society is entirely an opinion thing.