[throwaway2048]

In the end, donations are a form of political power, If only deciding what gets funded, and what doesn't, even before all the other self promotion stuff surrounding them.

Whats a better model for deciding the distribution of political power, a democratic one, or a dictatorial one?

At the very least I don't think its an unreasonable position to believe that democracy makes more sense.

[zozbot234]

Except that government has a lot more political power than your average philanthropist. It's not even close. Tax money inherently involves political power, in a way that's simply not the case for philanthropic donations.

[throwaway2048]

The government is however a democracy, Bill Gates isn't.

[zozbot234]

Strictly speaking, the U.S. is a republic not a democracy. Are you sure that your average congresscritter makes better decisions on money allocation at the margin than a private philanthropist would?

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Strictly speaking, the US is both a republic and a democracy, and this stupid meme needs to die.

[throwaway2048]

I have more faith in democracy than I do in the dictates of random, unaccountable billionaires yes.

[throwaway0a5e]

Microsoft and Amazon don't care what color my house is or how close my garage is to the property line so long as I keep paying them. Just paying my property taxes is not enough to prevent arbitrary violation of my property rights by my local government.

[throwaway0a5e]

Bill Gates can't send thugs with guns to shoot my dog because I refuse to humor some predatory attempt at revenue extraction by Microsoft.

Unless you're trying to do things that pretty much nobody finds unsavory (e.g. funding education) money by itself doesn't go very far.

[brightball]

Why only democracy or dictatorial? There's no form of voting that involves more freedom than voting with your wallet.

If democracy gets involved in that process, suddenly there's only an obstruction to say "No...you can't spend it on that." It's just there to introduce a form of majority control.