[partido3619463]

Except building this wealth gives you access to many ways to shield it from taxes.

Even philanthropic donations are effectively tax-shielded ways to further your particular interests (even if noble). Is it better that the Gates foundation is pushing COVAX rather than government institutions? (Which presumably could be funded by taxes on Gates’ wealth).

Gates Foundation does great things, but perhaps same things could be accomplished more effectively by government.

Otherwise way too much of a feudal vibe.

[lucaspm98]

Generally I would expect philanthropic donations to be distributed in a significantly more cost effective and dollar/societal good maximizing way by private individuals. Unnecessary steps of wealth transfer and redistribution through government institutions are avoided that are always prone to corruption, theft, or at least the ever-present government bureaucracy and inefficiency. You will certainly find examples of eccentric billionaires throwing away charitable money to worthless causes, but I’d argue as flawed as it may be it will almost certainly be more efficient than the government.

[jkhdigital]

> perhaps same things could be accomplished more effectively by government.

Perhaps. You could say the same thing about any economic activity. But go too far and you end up with, you know, Stalinist or Maoist communism with tens of millions of citizens dying of starvation. I’ll take the market economy, thank you very much.

[burkaman]

It seems like there might be some room to maneuver in between the current system and communism. Was the US a Maoist commune 50 years ago? Or was it just a market economy with higher income tax rates on the rich?