The consequences of the lack of sharing from today's top .1% are the needless deaths of millions of innocent people. I do think the kind of work Bill and Melinda Gates are doing is incredibly heroic but I also think it is morally demanded of them. When precious few others are doing what's morally demanded, maybe doing it makes you a bit of a hero?
This brings me to the example of Bezos: . He has many admirable qualities (I'm especially impressed by some genius things about how his company runs). He's also investing a lot of his money in trying to accomplish good in the world. But why should he get to do that without his company paying any taxes, since taxation supporting our successfully functioning society is part of what allows him to make all of his billions? Why should he in effect be the exclusive arbiter of where all of his surplus resources get spent, when we're all playing a rigged game in which it's far easier for the people who have more resources to keep and get more of them? For the super rich it probably makes sense to establish a space colony where small numbers of people can thrive and everybody else suffers. For the rest of the planet it might make a lot more sense to invest that effort in helping prevent further climate change damage. But since he's the one who doesn't pay any taxes and rakes in the billions hand-over-fist, he's the only one who gets to decide. And tragically when we have somebody like Trump as president, the vision of someone like Bezos seems absolutely wonderful in comparison. The whole concept of common good is being (has been?) destroyed in our democracy.Statistics: Posted by Phoebe — Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:33 pm
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