
Bill Gates urges fellow rich to share their wealth - swombat
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h37xgxUGSoxn8tHWAxhkesTyVk7Q
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viggity
I'm cool with Gates urging, I'm not cool with the government forcing

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xiaoma
_"I'm not cool with the government forcing"_

Then it's not really "sharing", is it?

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zouhair
Sounds like the charities of the last king of France and it's followers.
People don't need charity, most of those are rich because of huge help of
people's money and people's hard work. </mini_rant>

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Silentio
Slavoj Zizek's thinking on violence is worth quoting here:

"The two faces of Bill Gates parallel the two faces of Soros. The cruel
businessman destroys or buys out competitors, aims at virtual monopoly,
employs all the tricks of the trade to achieve his goals. Meanwhile, the
greatest philanthropist in the history of mankind quaintly asks: 'What does it
serve to have computers, if people do not have enough to eat and are dying of
dysentery?' In liberal communist ethics, the ruthless pursuit of profit is
counteracted by charity. Charity is the humanitarian mask hiding the face of
economic exploitation. In a superego blackmail of gigantic proportions, the
developed countries "help" the underdeveloped with aid, credits, and so on,
and thereby avoid the key issue, namely their complicity in and co-
responsibility for the miserable situation of the underdeveloped" (Violence
22).

Gates "give away your wealth, billionaires. It's fun!" rhetoric focuses only
on subjective violence - violence, as Zizek writes, "which is enacted by
social agents, evil individuals, disciplined repressive apparatuses," etc. The
"do-this-now-its-fun" call distracts attention away from the systematic
violence nestled at the root of capitalism. Zizek writes, and I think he's
right, that Gates call for a friendlier robber baron "signals a sad
predicament of ours: today's capitalism cannot reproduce itself on its own. It
needs extra-economic charity to sustain the cycle of social reproduction"
(24).

That is not to say that Gates money will not do some good. I imagine it will
do and has done. However, I do think it is a distraction from the real issue,
which is the massive global economic exploitation necessary to produce Gates's
wealth in the first place.

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swombat
That's a thoroughly unfair assessment. It assumes that all wealth is ill-
gotten, and that is utterly baseless.

Microsoft created and distributed an operating system that brought affordable
computing to the masses. They generated enormous wealth for all of mankind,
and they did so mostly playing by the rules that were set down for how
commerce should be conducted. Certainly, they did some things outside of those
rules, and for those they should be and have been punished. But on the whole,
the world is still a better place with Microsoft than it would have been
without.

Taking Warren Buffet or Soros next, capitalism functions well because there
are fiendishly clever people like those trying to figure out where to best
allocate their capital to maximise their returns. This fundamental principle
allows us to move wealth to wherever it's needed, whatever is the next big
thing that humanity _should_ be working on. Without them, we would be worse
off too, since capital would be badly allocated - for example, to building
countless overpriced houses rather than other things.

What you suggest here is dangerous, because there is a grain of truth in it.
Yes, there have been centuries of everyone exploiting everyone else. But
pointing that out is useless, because it doesn't help make the situation
better. And ascribing that blame to a few individuals, particularly those who
started from nothing and built tremendous wealth through their hard work, is
completely unfair and unwarranted.

If you have some practical suggestions, rather than pointless muck-stirring,
please do share them instead of quoting conspiracy theorists.

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Silentio
The idea that the wealthy started from nothing and ascribing their wealth to
the "hard work" of building from nothing is romantic, but ultimately it's a
fantasy. No doubt much individual hard work goes into building a fortune, but
the fortune itself owes much more to the labor of thousands, if not millions,
of workers, right down to the janitor who sweeps the floor, than it does to
the individual who had the next big idea. Labor certainly has more to do with
wealth than capital itself.

Inequality is embedded in capitalism. When the invisible hand moves capital
from one place to another, it does not only give, it takes away. For someone
like Bill Gates to give as he does, he has to have taken away (you might
prefer "created") in the first place.

It may be muck-stirring, but I am less interested in saving the world than I
am in understanding the ideological assumptions implicit in, for instance,
Gates's actions, and the systems that allow those actions to take place. To
leave the muck unstirred, to forget it exists, is to live in a world that does
nothing but support conventional wisdom, excludes alternatives, and limits
debate. The useful question is not, "is this True or not," but rather, "what
would it mean if it were true."

Finally, if Zizek is a conspiracy theorist, was Hegel, was Marx?

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visdo
Please leave hacker news, this is not your place.

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GeneralMaximus
Hey, this is HN. Everyone has their say. Besides, arguing is fun :)

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lutorm
How about not bitching about higher corporate taxes then? If you think of
government as a charity that does stuff like welfare and education, maybe he
should have a sit-down with Ballmer re the story from a couple of days ago.

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bokonist
The government is not a charity. The programs that have the outward appearance
of charity in reality operate for the benefit of the employees.

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lutorm
Can you provide some proof of that last statement? I highly doubt that's the
case.

(And even if it was true, how do you know that's not true of the charities,
too?)

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bokonist
My views come from years of working in government and politics, following
current events, and reading inside accounts of how the political system works.
Probably the best book on getting an understanding of how government works in
practice is "Government's End" by Jonathan Rauch. If you want a more
entertaining view, watch a few episodes of "Yes, Minister", which was based on
the diaries of British cabinet minister Richard Crossman. Or simply take the
time to learn in depth the politics and policy of one particular area, such as
education. For example, the other day I was talking to a mayoral candidate in
Boston. He explained that the biggest factor blocking all of the major reforms
he would like to do were the teacher unions, and that they are extremely
powerful because they vote as a block in a way that promotes their own
interests.

The difference between government charity and private charity is that the
workers in government charities form voting blocks that can redirect
government tax payer dollars to fund their pay. Private charities must
convince donors to voluntarily donate money.

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absconditus
I want to elaborate on your last sentence. With private charities I have much
more direct influence on how my income is used. If a charity I am donating to
no longer serves purposes with which I agree I am free to stop donating. Try
to stop paying the government for programs which you don't support or strongly
object to.

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marcocampos
Hey buddy, how about starting this by selling your software cheaper?

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nopassrecover
Many problems with this, beginning with: 1) He doesn't set the price 2) If
people didn't make money there wouldn't be rich people to be asked by Bill
Gates to donate. 3) How would this help those in need of charity

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vyrotek
Attn: Rich People - I am willing to accept your wealth. Please contact me
ASAP.

