Benevolent Olygarch to be Replaced with a Benevolent Automaton.

[evildevil]

Police State to Keep us Safe from Terrorist Jihadist Communist Law Breakers.

How Billionaires Use Non-Profits to Bypass Governments and Force Their Agendas on Humanity
As wealth becomes concentrated in fewer hands, so does political and social power via foundations and non-profits.As wealth becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the

Comments

[amw]

(continued)

But, let's put the issue of fixing the American economic system to the side for a second. How do we help the bazillionaires of today to redistribute their wealth to the world's neediest?

The utilitarian would say that the best way to get money to the poor is to literally give money to the poor - see https://www.givedirectly.org/ But GiveDirectly only works because they already have an infrastructure developed. In one small part of one African country. If you want to help the poor in other countries, the infrastructure has to be there first. So what infrastructure should philanthropists focus on? Making sure there is a banking system so that money can travel from a Western businessman directly to a subsistence farmer? Making sure all subsistence farmers have access to a communications network where they can find out about the fact that there is money waiting for them? Creating a delivery or bus service that can reach the remotest parts of the world so raw goods and/or money can get into the hands of subsistence farmers? Do these things even make sense in some cultures?

I think tackling extreme poverty is a much, much more difficult problem than tackling extreme wealth. They are both noble goals, but I think the latter is something far more difficult because you cannot just make one fix for everyone - each culture is different and each region has different challenges. Even if we agree that in a perfect world each country's government should be lifting up its own poor and not relying on international aid agencies to do so, how do we avoid the problem that many governments in poor countries are insanely corrupt? Do you really think that we should go in and try clean house in foreign governments?

So yeah... extreme poverty in the third world... major problem, no easy answers. I can't fault these bazillionaires too much for giving it a shot. And especially not in America, whose government allocates less than 1% of the budget to foreign aid, and one party wants to slash that even further. We should definitely keep an eye on them, though.

Extreme wealth in the first world? Major problem, much easier answers. It's shameful that we haven't solved this yet. It's shameful that so many conservatives don't feel the slightest shred of guilt at supporting policies that exacerbate the problem. And it's appalling to me that the middle class is too selfish to make any real movement on these issues.