One of the best things I read was an 1889 essay by Andrew Carnegie called The Gospel of Wealth. It makes the case that the wealthy have a responsibility to return their resources to society, a radical idea at the time that laid the groundwork for philanthropy as we know it today.
In the essay’s most famous line, Carnegie argues that “the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” I have spent a lot of time thinking about that quote lately. People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that “he died rich” will not be one of them.
We’ll see
This means Bill Gates gets to dictate where society goes instead of society.
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No. He never should have had that wealth to begin with.
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He could instead use the money to lobby for billionaires to pay 90% taxes, thus making the world a better place. But that would be giving power away, instead he gets to pick and choose what makes him look cooler at cocktail parties.
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We can continue this discussion after you’ve learned how to read.
So you want him to just stay a billionaire then, cool.
If he gives away 99% of his wealth, he remains a billionaire
How nice, live as the 0.0000001% that owns the world and make up most of the big evils in the world from the age of 34 to the age of 70 and then from 70 to 90 transition to the top 0.0001% and “not die rich”
A real sacrifice, what a philanthropist, brave.
I’m just here being a top 25% fully aware of my privilege for being born in a rich country and working in a well paying job, and I still donate more then him in terms of percentage of my net worth. (Bill gates donates about 0.8-1.6% of his net worth annually, I donate about 5-10% annually) and I truly believe that no one should be a billionaire.
Me, bottom 10%, making coffee for a paycheck and scavenging my new pair of pants from a dumpster: Yeah, man, you said it.
Me, bottom 10%
bottom 10% of mankind are most likely starving and homeless, definitely not on lemmy
Assuming they meant in their country, and that their country is USA, bottom 10% as of 2023 was $15-18K. https://dqydj.com/2023-income-percentile-calculator/
bottom 10% as of 2023 was $15-18K
most likely starving and homeless
but I am determined that “he died rich” will not be one of them.
Bill Gates has a net worth of ~$168 billion. Even if this isn’t just PR intended to launder his image, even if he does in fact give away 99% of that, it will still leave him with $1.68 billion dollars. Even if he ups that to 99.99% that’ll still leave him with $16.8 million, which is still rich by anyone’s measure. Bill Gates’ idea of ‘not dying rich’ is radically different than yours or mine; he was never not going to die rich.
That’s true, but to be fair, if he pulls it off it will be one hell of an example to set.
If your standard for ‘a good example’ is being a bit more creative with his tax-dodging PR stunts than other billionaires, that’s a pretty low bar. A better example to set would be to not exploit people to accumulate wealth in the first place. It takes a whole lot of people like you and me staying poor to make Bill Gates that rich.
A better example to set would be to not exploit people to accumulate wealth in the first place.
I do that everyday. Everyone feel free to thank me.
No one gets thanks for being a decent human being, it’s sort of the standard that everyone is expected to hold to.
I would totally exploit people if I actually got the opportunity to do so, it’s just no one will let me do it.
Then you are not a decent human being? :P
That’s true. I just appreciate that he seems to do a bit more than Musk to at least keep the appearance of giving back. This still doesn’t get him off the guillotine list.
I don’t appreciate that one oligarch is better at lying to us than another one, that kinda makes it worse in my mind. Instead of telling ourselves comforting stories about how generous these societal leeches are we should be telling ourselves stories about how much better everyone else’s lives could be if they didn’t exist.
Can we please not help launder his reputation by proactively giving him credit for something he hasn’t done yet?
And he hasn’t done shit to help the peasants of the country that made him filthy rich?
Not shitting on the African communities he’s “helped,” but he can afford to help a lot more.
Oh, and he shit on making the CVD-19 vaccine IP free.
I‘ve said it before and I‘ll say it again: Gates is not a saint, but there is clearly a difference between him and fucks like Thiel, Sacks or the Koch family who would never consider donating any of their money to research ways to eradicate Malaria or fund education programs for women.
Oh, hey, we’re up to the Enlightened Monarchs phase of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.
inb4 he “gives it away” to his own charity for tax dodging purposes
Obvious properity gospel propaganda is obvious Abolish billionnaires, fiscal paradises and inheritance with a monetary value in excess of a lifetime of the median income.
And he’ll still be a billionaire. And he got that money by suppressing the world with proprietary software. He’s single handedly helped hold humanity back. I don’t care the good he’s done as it’s built on the back of all the harm he’s done.
He was also a major opponent of the efforts during Covid to waive medical patents for producers in the global south to allow faster distribution of those vaccines.
Shouldn’t be much of a surprise. His family has always been eugenecists with a “benevolent” mask. Not knocking what his foundation has done against malaria, but I believe he’s said some very direct things about wanting lower birthrates in the global south.
It’s not really about lowering birth rates directly it’s about removing the perceived need for higher birth rates.
There are quite a lot of studies that show that even in countries where infant mortality is now manageable it still takes several generations before that trickles down to the population and they stop having 15 kids as standard. Also lack of sexual education doesn’t help.
Beat me to it. Anand Giridharadas has spoken on the general scam of billionaires white-washing their legacies like this… their philanthropy seldom approaches, much less exceeds, the harm they did in getting so rich in the first place.
And somehow, even when proclaiming to give “Most” of their fortunes away, it ends up in a “Charity” or “Philanthropy” they control.
I’ll believe it when it happens, until then all I hear are promises that could be broken.
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Great; start by paying off all student loans.
He could do that. Easily.
But he won’t.
There’s an estimate floating around that it would cost about $20 billion to end all homelessness in the US. Whether or not that’s an accurate estimate, there is an amount that could do it, and every day that billionaires wake up and choose not to do it they choose evil.
maybe he can buy my bandcamp albums 🥹
He learned his lesson in 95 when shipping wezzer with PCs
The fact that he collected billions (worth of cash and financial instruments) in the first place is the problem. He should have been charging consumers less, and paying his workers more. He never should have accumulated his obscene wealth to begin with.
And not being an evil bitch driving competition out of business with illegal practices.
He’s already been claiming he would for the last 15. It was too little to late back then. He either needs to get busy with it or shut up about it.
At his current 69yrs age, he could get all the busy he wants for his remaining life and still fail to reach the 99% goal. 🙄 🤦♀️ 🤡
He’s donating through his charity to avoid taxes. He will be known as a man that died rich. He has failed, he’ll remembered for Microsoft and hanging with Jeffrey epstein to get a Nobel peace price.
Prove me wrong Billy boy.
He’s not trying to be seen as “not dying rich”, that’s the author’s interpretation alone.
