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Comment by novok | Hacker News Reader

People ask billionaires to do something because they are the ones who visibly accomplish something. I think, subconsciously, they don't expect their governments to do something.

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I think that's a great point about visibly accomplishing something. I think a lot of the things that a government accomplishes happens more invisibly, in the background, whereas billionaires (especially the Bezos, Zuckerburg, and other B2C billionaires) do so with a much more direct relationship with people—and spend a lot of money promoting how well they've done things.

How much is the government doing well but we just don't see? Conversely, how much of business is doing things that harm people that we also don't see?

Yes, this is a question of competence, not resources.

Not just competence, I think something like the bystander effect is in play as well. If you single out any single congressperson to appeal to, they'll shrug and point to their 534 other congressional colleagues not doing anything as their excuse to not do anything either.

Their government is bought and run by the people and policy that billionaires fund and endorse.

That perspective is the result of decades of massively successful libertarian propaganda. Good efficient government is possible but only if we stop electing representatives that want to destroy government. I see some hope in Republican's new found hatred of tech billionaires.

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