It isn’t hard at all to say whether Bill Gates is an “overall net ‘good’ person” or not. He became a billionaire (which is an inherently exploitative act), and no amount of trying to whitewash his legacy with philanthropy after the fact can change that.
Oh I’m sorry, did I express an opinion that wasn’t an overly simplistic black or white answer? Thank god the internet edge lord economy is still going strong to correct me.
Crazy how people feel the need to be able to judge everyone in a group exactly the same huh? One billionaire not being an asshole and they need to shut it down because it would break their reasoning. Billionaires can be assholes and Bill Gates can be an exception, doesnt change anything really. The saddest part is that this is the line of reasoning to racist people use to evaluate ‘other races’ : group them up and condemn them all, easier than actually evaluating each case.
If you buy the argument that billionaires have become such by collecting the extra value their employees create above the wage they get paid, then it’s easy to see why many consider them harmful regardless of their personal traits. In that framework, the billionaire that’s the least harmful is the one that has the fewest billions. Luckily, unlike race, there’s an easy way to become a non-billionaire. One option is paying higher wages so that you never become one. Another is lobbying for high taxes and paying them. Yet another is giving enough of money away as to become a millionaire. With race, there are no options to become not-that-race.
And so we judge billionaires as a group, as a class, because of their function and effect on society, the economy and the political system. Not because we think they’re all bad people that we have to hate. They cannot be billionaires without having these effects.
Speaking of value employees make above their wages, here’s a fun fact. If you take the average yearly net income (profit after costs) of Google and you divide it by their number of employees, you get a number around half a million per person, per year.
☝️Case in point, LOL.
It isn’t hard at all to say whether Bill Gates is an “overall net ‘good’ person” or not. He became a billionaire (which is an inherently exploitative act), and no amount of trying to whitewash his legacy with philanthropy after the fact can change that.
Oh I’m sorry, did I express an opinion that wasn’t an overly simplistic black or white answer? Thank god the internet edge lord economy is still going strong to correct me.
Crazy how people feel the need to be able to judge everyone in a group exactly the same huh? One billionaire not being an asshole and they need to shut it down because it would break their reasoning. Billionaires can be assholes and Bill Gates can be an exception, doesnt change anything really. The saddest part is that this is the line of reasoning to racist people use to evaluate ‘other races’ : group them up and condemn them all, easier than actually evaluating each case.
If you buy the argument that billionaires have become such by collecting the extra value their employees create above the wage they get paid, then it’s easy to see why many consider them harmful regardless of their personal traits. In that framework, the billionaire that’s the least harmful is the one that has the fewest billions. Luckily, unlike race, there’s an easy way to become a non-billionaire. One option is paying higher wages so that you never become one. Another is lobbying for high taxes and paying them. Yet another is giving enough of money away as to become a millionaire. With race, there are no options to become not-that-race.
And so we judge billionaires as a group, as a class, because of their function and effect on society, the economy and the political system. Not because we think they’re all bad people that we have to hate. They cannot be billionaires without having these effects.
Speaking of value employees make above their wages, here’s a fun fact. If you take the average yearly net income (profit after costs) of Google and you divide it by their number of employees, you get a number around half a million per person, per year.