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Historical precedence says you’re wrong. Rockefeller, a prominent capitalist and thus commonly demonized by anti-capitalists, supported initiatives to combat hunger. His foundation provided substantial funding for soup kitchens during the great depression, and his foundation has continued to focus on public health, education, and scientific research.

JP Morgan, “the ghost of rich dudes passed”, was also philanthropic as fuck. He didn’t donate food directly, but his efforts supported educational institutions, scientific research, and the arts.

Even Elon Musk has a foundation that studies renewable energy research, space exploration, pediatric research, and more, all at cost for the betterment of the world. In fact, when it was especially popular to point out that his wealth could end poverty entirely, he started directly asking people for their metrics and potential methods. He was clearly ready to put resources into fixing a problem, but nothing ever came of it because no one actually had real metrics or methods, they just wanted a reason to dunk on Elon.

Okay so those are just some guys I already knew about, what if I just pick a random “capitalist” name I hear commonly thrown around. Carnegie, sure, not sure what he did but I know I’ve seen his name besmirched for being capitalist aaaaand yep look at that! In his older age he donated most of his wealth to the establishment of public libraries, educational institutions, and foundations aimed at promoting world peace. I literally had no idea about any details of this guy’s life, but yeah, it’s not surprising that a successful prominent capitalist lived a life of philanthropy in his later years, because that’s the more consistent pattern.

Have you ever once even tried to look into whether what you believe is true or not? Or would you just rather hate a label you’ve been told to hate?

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TokenBoomer@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
[Same](Sociology professor Linsey McGoey has written that many current and past philanthropists amassed their fortunes by predatory business practices which enhanced the very social problems their philanthropy is intended to alleviate.)

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- HardNut@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What predatory practices?
  
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  - TokenBoomer@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Exploitation
    
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    HardNut@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And how were they being exploitative?
    
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Funkytom467@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My point of view is that the money all capitalist have is a resource that was taken from the rest of us. So donating all of it back would just be the bare minimum someone can do.

After donating all of it back, you’re right we also need to figure out a plan to distribute it properly in the first place, and most important make a system and society that’s gonna provide for everyone.

And no kidding no one found a answer to that, from the beginning of human society we only very briefly achieved some systems that’s almost there. But no one never had the answer. There is always some problems in any society.

What i know for sure is that capitalism is not only not the answer, but is actually a system that’s getting more and more corrupted, with increasing problems. To the point it’s leading us directly to a wall.

So in all the different view we can have of the world, all the different system we can use for society, there is no right system, there is worse than capitalism, but there is also better. I strive for not the definitive best, just better…

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- HardNut@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  My point of view is that the money all capitalist have is a resource that was taken from the rest of us.
  
  Why?
  
  you’re right we also need to figure out a plan to distribute it properly in the first place
  
  I didn’t suggest that. Redistribution of resources doesn’t work, because people don’t easily comply with their wealth being taken away. This idea requires the assumption that it’s not theirs to begin with, so we’re back to the first question: why is a capitalist’s wealth not rightfully theirs?
  
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  - Funkytom467@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Because we have limited resources, no riches can come to you without profiting of the work of others. If you really want to get your own view you can just look for yourself how rich people got their wealth and judge by yourself is that normal.
    
    I meant that for the extremely wealthy to be precise.
    
    Some moderately rich people are actually contributing positively. They are examples of what capitalism used to be, a system that wasn’t perfect but could still lead society in a positive direction, sometimes better than the alternatives.
    
    Redistribution of resources only works to some extent. Not to redistribute all the wealth in one go sure, but to balance the inequity continuously. For exemple taxe on income could be such a way. And like you said some rich people are ok with it and are philanthropic even.
    
    But the true goal of society would be to distribute riches correctly in the first place. So we don’t have to rely on philanthropy.
    
    And yeah i don’t think capitalism distribute it correctly. So it’s theirs in our capitalistic society, but it isn’t rightfully in my opinion.
    
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    HardNut@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Because we have limited resources, no riches can come to you without profiting from the work of others.
    
    Why is this true, and why is this a problem?
    
    look for yourself how rich people got their wealth and judge by yourself is that normal.
    
    In almost all cases I can think of, a rich person became rich because they provided a product or service that others saw value in, and this generally works for the betterment of civilization.
    
    Ford got rich off cars, the people benefitted by gaining access to transportation. JP Morgan got rich off trains, same thing, he provided a transportation service that people willfully used. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs gave us home computers, despite whatever your opinion is for each of them. Jeff Bezos got rich because he made the online marketplace so ridiculously easy to use, a service people enjoy and see value in.
    
    This is the principle reason they got rich in all of these cases: they sold something the people wanted, at a price they were willing to.
    
    Some moderately rich people are actually contributing positively.
    
    Can you describe what some of these moderately rich people are doing better than the mega rich people?
    
    But the true goal of society would be to distribute riches correctly in the first place.
    
    Why is this the goal of society? How do you determine it’s been distributed correctly?
    
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c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
All of these men would have made more of a difference and reduced their own wealth more if they’d supported a land value tax and the restructuring of capitalist economics to it’s true form of laborers creating an increase in wealth due to labor, and having wages derived from said labor by estimating their personal effort and the increase in capital that comes from it.

Instead we have men who owned more of the economy than Bezos and Musk giving out a pittance to help the poor when they’re the source of the problem with their pseudo-capitalism “trickle up” economics.

Fix the issue, rich people giving away 1% of their wealth isn’t a solution when the problem is the system that allows for them by taxing the wrong people on the wrong items. Eliminate all taxes and institute the LVT so the middle class doesn’t have to keep shouldering the burden that the rich should have an equal share of.

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- HardNut@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Land value tax is simply unjustifiable, because land is the most important thing to leave in private hands. To allow for land tax is to concede that the state has a right to the land you own. The problems that has directly lead to in history are innumerable. From Rome to Russia, state control of land was at the forefront of their issues.
  
  Why do you think reducing their wealth is a moral good? If you want to improve life for some people, your focus should not be on reducing wealth for others. The latter does not necessarily lead to the former, and it’s an inherently destructive mindset. Destroying one person’s wealth merely destroys their wealth, it does not make others lives better by default
  
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  - c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m sorry but I completely disagree, the state of current affairs is a direct result of the private ownership of land with inefficient tax systems intended to staunch the flow of blood like a bandaid over a gushing artery.
    
    Land and natural resources were not created by anyone and cannot be justified as being owned by anyone. The way we would represent public ownership of natural resources via capitalism would be a tax on the use of said resources, a rent paid to society for being allowed exclusive use of it.
    
    I’m not advocating for socialism or communism which is where your issues regarding public ownership of land stem from, capitalism works just fine as long as the correct institutions are being taxed in an efficient manner. The LVT would work well because it doesn’t allow land to just sit around unused. You either fulfill a direct supply need for a market or you sell it to someone who will do so. Not only does that put market direction and supply back into the domain of the consumer who’s needs in terms of say… Housing are being left unfulfilled, but would incentivize the efficient use of land and help create something other than single family homes that most of society doesn’t need and can’t afford.
    
    It also keeps the wealthy from dodging taxes, because it wouldn’t be possible to hide the amount of land your businesses use the same way you can take stock options instead of an income or use tax haven bank accounts and deflect most of your tax burden. It also frees up the worker and their employer from taxes while putting the tax directly onto the people who provide the least value in the chain and derive the most wealth from that parasitic action, landholders. Individuals who own a couple houses aren’t the target, we are talking primarily about businesses that take up hundreds of thousands of acres for manufacturing and who’s owners are more wealth than the rest of the nation combined.
    
    As for your insinuation that reducing wealth doesn’t equal more wealth for others, that’s correct. However, the entire idea of wages deriving from capital and the malthusian doctrine are both fundamentally flawed and have lead to the idea that there has to be poverty, there has to be this significant of a class divide. It’s just the laws of the universe, can’t do anything about it! We have never seen the outcome of a society that taxes in this manner and provides services like an automated capitalist economy which uses land tax to facilitate a UBI, which is the inevitable endgame of modern LLM and robotics technology. If we don’t plan for that by deciding now that land is publically owned and “rented” from society via tax then we are going to see continual wealth disparity and our Western cities are going to start looking a lot more like India with obscene wealth next to miles of homeless camps. Those that own the land and the capital will reduce our workforce while sucking up the increased profit margins and the eventual reality will be a few trillionaires alongside millions of destitute and starving people who don’t have jobs to justify their existence. Only we won’t have the ability to drag them into the street and cut off their heads like the French revolution, because they’ll be living in underground bunkers on unmarked islands or in space stations at the top of the gravity well. Untouchable.
    
    The human race is fucked, these issues were called out over a century ago and we might have gotten through to people, but because an entire generation of Westerners thinks public ownership of anything is LITERALLY COMMUNISM even when it’s in a capitalist economy, we will just see the issue get worse as the middle class gets nuked into oblivion.
    
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