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There's also principled reasons to be against this. Namely, that government tends to be woefully bad at optimizing for moral good (cf. the American prison indus
by endominus 4y ago
There's also principled reasons to be against this. Namely, that government tends to be woefully bad at optimizing for moral good (cf. the American prison industry or California's attempts to end homelessness) and is just as likely to put that money towards things the majority of the population disagree with. The same logic would say that Russia is right to strip its billionaires of wealth to pursue foreign wars.
- AlexandrB 4y agoYes, government is bad at optimizing for moral good. Which is why billionaires should give their wealth to their own workers. If Tim Cook paid the people building iPhones more it would do far more good than him donating the money that comes from increased margins to some charity. The workers could decide what they need for themselves! Instead, the idea seems to be that people are not properly qualified to identify their own needs and such decision need to be made by funneling profits to a CEO who then has superior knowledge of how to help the world and donates that money as he sees fit.
- kethinov 4y agoTurns out that billionaires tend to not want to do that, so it also turns out that using government power to compel them to do so using the power of taxation is the system that scales best.
- kethinov 4y agoDemocracy is the worst way to decide things, except for all the others.