[1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...
Actually, it's exactly the reliability of SS/medicare/etc that make people take it for granted and give it less attention than its dollar value would suggest. People can plan for it to be around in 20 years which can't be said for charity schemes.
Donations do have blind spots, though: They rarely go through the sort of assessment that is required for public spending. They are also susceptible to individuals' subjective motivations. I know of one charity caring for stray cats financed mostly by the estates of wealthy widows. Meanwhile, nobody donates to rehabilitation efforts of middle-aged sex offenders.
Not really. It depends on what you think taxes should be paying for. If you think they should cover essential services that can't be taken care of by the private sector (ex: roads, police, national defense) then lower taxes and private sector philanthropic spending is a better choice.
It removes the particularly heinous problem of government officials spending the public's money on things the public doesn't actually want them to spend it on. The private sector has no such issues as by definition they're spending their own money.
That's actually a good thing in my book. Sometimes the right thing is not the easy or popular one. "Let's cut education spending and increase everybody's salaries instead" would probably be very popular but it might not prove very beneficial in the long term. If you dislike the way the government spends money then you elect a different one. If you don't manage to do that then maybe "the public" doesn't disagree so strongly with the way the money is spent.
More generally if you move this to the private sector then the problem is that you effectively weaken democracy. The rich decides what needs funding while the poor, well, they do poor people stuff I suppose.
If you look at modern western societies the rich already have significantly more power than the average citizen (through lobbying, campaign funding etc...). Do you think that's a positive thing? Do you think we should cut the middle man and let them handle everything directly? Instead of complaining that my government doesn't spend money the way I want to I'll get to complain that Mark Zukerberg and Bill Gates don't spend money the way I want to? How is that a better proposition? Can I vote Bill Gates out? Do I have to become a Dropbox shareholder if I want homeless shelters to be funded?
I'll admit that libertarianism in general baffles me. Many of its proponent seems very clever people, many certainly more clever than I am, yet when I discuss with them I feel like I'm talking with somebody from bizarro-earth. "Finance and banking are out of control, let's deregulate it completely!", "Governments are corrupt, let's give the power directly to the ones doing the corrupting!", "It's getting cold, let's get naked!"
Taken out of context, it would be hard to know whether this is a criticism of the public sector or private.
> If you dislike the way the government spends money then you elect a different one. If you don't manage to do that then maybe "the public" doesn't disagree so strongly with the way the money is spent.
Taken at face value, believing that this is how it works realistically is quite similar to the impractical beliefs of pure, staunch libertarians.
Not that I take one side or the other, because I reside in the middle, but surely you can understand why people think governments are worse at things, waste more, and actually give individuals less control over where their dollars are spent.
Well sure, the philanthropic model, which is in essence allowing the wealthy to control every part of society by determining what exists (i.e. is funded), who gets to live and die (by who they choose to give jobs to), what can be said (since every communications medium is privately owned), is a better choice for the wealthy, never for society or anyone else. It moves as much as possible of society from a public sphere where democracy exists into the corporate world, which is always a dictatorship.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is great in that it funds research and development in educational pedagogy and techniques and funds education in general. But its existence is also explicitly anti-democratic. It funds schools that accept its doctrine, and leaves the others to wither and die. The existence of charity will be used to cut public support (why do we need public support when these schools are funded without it?) and then we have the setting where one billionaire effectively sets educational policy without democratic input at all. The Kochs are trying to do this by replacing standard American History textbooks with the history rewritten and changed to better serve as Libertarian propaganda.
Make no mistake, when you accept that philanthropy is a fundamental tenet of society you are literally ceding all decision making power to the ultrawealthy who can afford to take part in it, and cutting out nearly everyone else, ensuring they will be begging for scraps from their masters forever. You ensure that anything people have is framed as a kind gift from a wealthy benefactor (and you wouldn't want to make that benefactor mad and risk losing those gifts you need to survive, would you?), not a right or expectation. Even well-intentioned philanthropy is extremely dangerous.
Private sector military defense or police force has a lot of issues. It's a non starter.
> Also very typical American, not considering healthcare an essential service, lol.
Just because I didn't list something doesn't mean I don't consider it a service that should be provided as a public service. I picked the simplest examples to make a point. If I were king for a day my list would include a basic form of universal healthcare services (think Medicaid, not Medicare) and public education as well.
First, even if some Americans don't support universal healthcare, that doesn't mean that all Americans don't support it. Even if they do, there are arguments to be made both for and against universal healthcare. I happen to fall on the pro-universal healthcare side, but it's certainly not without drawbacks.
Second, the OP wasn't suggesting that we should have privately funded militaries and private roads, but that one possible government outcome is the government paying for such things while leaving other items (maybe donations to scientific foundations as an example) up to private sector interests. If you're Dropbox, and you strongly believe in a cause and you want to support that cause, it makes far more sense to withhold taxes (so far as it is legal to do so) that you have no control over and set up a foundation to pursue the cause that you're aiming for. Not only can you ensure that money goes toward that cause, but you're nearly guaranteed to do a better job than the government which is, by it's very nature, subject to the whims and opinions of people who may not share your view on the use of your money and less efficient in the handling of your money.
I have a big problem with American companies not paying their fair share of taxes, and even more so with the obscene wealth inequality that has come to dominate the last few decades, but your post here is a drive-by at a reasonable discussion point, followed by a trite comment about Americans for no reason other than to stir up trouble.
I would like to see these foundations "consolidate", and streamline their grants offering and application processes.
It's surprising (and a little depressing) how much money goes to for-profit in the funding cycles of "not for profits"...
Companies should pay taxes, and more, lobby officials for fair and simple tax codes so these issues don't arise in the first place. Dropbox, Apple, Google, etc. shouldn't have a competitive advantage over companies unwilling or unable to play these games.
That being said, funding and supporting non-profits and charitable work is fine. I don't know whose intentions are so important that we should discourage that kind of behavior.