(a) I believe that the government will use its money to impact the world in a better way than billionaires do, or
(b) I concede that (a) is false, but I don't care. It's not about the impact we make with the money, it's about dragging billionaires down.
Personally, I'm interested in impact. I have little faith that paying taxes to the US Government is a more effective way to generate positive impact in the world than personal charitable donations.
If I could pay my taxes to Bill Gates I would – my tax dollars would be used to eradicate polio or malaria, rather than on bureaucracy and starting wars.
I'm not saying I have a better idea, I don't, but democracy has been the driving force behind some pretty heinous stuff over the centuries (most obviously the resistance to equality of race, gay rights and universal suffrage). It's just less terrible than the alternatives that exist in the world today (e.g. dictatorship).
At least in giving your money to a Buffett, a Gates or a Feeney you have some evidence that they intend to put it to good use.
Only insofar as you're getting into a debate about how morally right it is _compared to billionaires and/or corporations spending the same money_.
(c) I believe in direct wealth distribution (e.g. via a basic income) and that you believe 100m people with $10 will spend that money in a better way than 1 person with $1bn.
I feel like the very existence of billionaires demonstrates that they are a self-selecting pool of abusers and/or criminals running exploits that place their interests above the system they're in. Even the idea of 'the wealthy allocate money better' is ridiculous. Towards what, themselves? It's like saying cancer allocates body resources better, because cancer can get into a position where it conclusively 'wins'.
If you live in a real democratic country, then you have no excuse. YOU* chose that government.
* obviously a generalization, but in the end enough people chose that outcome.
That means that billionaires also act against the interests of the donor class as a matter of course. If they were not the very definition of unaccountable power, you wouldn't see anybody defending them or their typical behaviors.
It is so benignly restricted since it excludes the possibility of charity and government funding can have a positive impact. Instead it is some fight against good and evil.
I don't know what it has to do with Christianity, but you are free to visit a church, maybe they can tell you something about the gospel you linked.
In that regard, perhaps it’s good to have social intervention performed by a mixture of democratic and individualistic entities. Perhaps one will address things that the other might miss.
> Two of the billionaires whose philanthropy I most respect, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, have done a lot of work on criminal justice reform. The organizations they fund determined that many innocent people are languishing in jail for months because they don’t have enough money to pay bail; others are pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit because they have to get out of jail in time to get to work or care for their children, even if it gives them a criminal record. They funded a short-term effort to help these people afford bail, and a long-term effort to reform the bail system. One of the charities they donate to, The Bronx Freedom Fund, found that 92% of suspects without bail assistance will plead guilty and get a criminal record. But if given enough bail assistance to make it to trial, over half would have all charges dropped. This is exactly the kind of fighting-mass-incarceration and stopping-the-cycle-of-poverty work everyone says we need, and it works really well.
> If Moskovitz and Tuna’s money instead flowed to the government, would it accomplish the same goal in some kind of more democratic, more publically-guided way? No. It would go to locking these people up, paying for more prosecutors to trick them into pleading guilty, more prison guards to abuse and harass them. The government already spends $100 billion – seven times Tuna and Moskovitz’s combined fortunes – on maintaining the carceral state each year. This utterly dwarfs any trickle of money it spends on undoing the harms of the carceral state, even supposing such a trickle exists.
Many other examples are provided.