[nicce]

I think he is both. Maybe you need to do some evil before you can do some good, because the general evil does whatever necessary to win in competition, and that is challenging. He would have never got the money he has if he didn't do that.

[rendaw]

This is assuming that huge wealth inequality is a given and all we can do is pray for a rare oligarch to give some of that money back to those in need.

Edit: I think it's great that he is doing this, but I don't think it's a good system. Giving money is so hard at scale that you need to set up a corporation just to figure out how to do it, and either it's so hard that they can barely shave away at the amount they have or their MO has evolved to include preserving themselves as an entity. If that wealth were more distributed, the social distance between those in need and those with money would be less.

[nicce]

We don't have general system in place that would somehow prevent this. The world runs on capitalism and everyone needs food and roof. Whoever has the power to give them or take them, has the total power, and can play with the system more they have wealth. Social democracy is some sort of middle-ground but it is not enough, because it is not applied everywhere equally, and it is hard to define what is selfish and non-selfish.

[jayd16]

Laissez-faire capitalism is not synonymous with all forms of capitalism. We could and have in the past curbed runaway wealth and power. Pretending nothing can be done is, at best, ignoring history.

[nicce]

Absolutely something should be done. We just haven't found the method yet and we should keep looking for it.

[jayd16]

We could also decide to live in a society that doesn't allow for such runaway wealth consolidation we need the robber barons' hand-outs to do good. C'est la vie.

[nicce]

We could, but we haven't yet figured it out how to.

[jayd16]

Heavy progressive taxes and subsidized services would go a long way.

[neilv]

Sure you can. You have an equitable society, and when someone inevitably tries to take more than their share (because there will always be sociopaths), you make them stop.

[nicce]

That works only if majority agrees that we put such system in place and enforce it globally in the world. Some could say that communism was a failed attempt for this.

[neilv]

Why does it have to global? Isn't that just imperialism? Why can't it be scoped to a geopolitical unit that wants it?

(I'm highly skeptical of social movements that claim to be for equality, but of course there are officials who suspiciously enjoy non-equal luxuries. Then it just looks like greedy sociopaths leveraging 'equality' PR in bad faith, as a tactic.)

[nicce]

There are democratic countries in Africa, for example, but people in there still seek "better life" by moving to other countries, or other countries abuse these countries, because the have the wealth do so, and on individual level, it is very hard to resist some additional comfort for life if you are below certain level. People look social media and want what others have. It is very difficult problem.

Natural resources also are not distributed equally and e.g. living longer life is a basic human need. What if some other country has the technology to save humans but they don't give it for free? Some start hoarding wealth in order to get that and it changes the political attitude in general.