We are supposed to agree that absolute destitution, dispossession, and disenfranchisement are the normal presumptive characteristics of a human being. We are supposed to thank our betters for anything they let us hold for a moment. And we are supposed give that thing up without protest whenever our betters want it back.
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His father went to U. Wash. under the GI bill. I think the point @MikeTheBard is trying to make is that Gates the Current is an example of generational upward mobility, which is consistent with the American dream myth, and not really comparable to dynastic wealth (which to many of us feels amoral).
What’s problematic with the Gates story is not that he was able to leverage his background the way he did, but that it is so much harder for people today to follow a similar multigenerational trajectory.
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I didn’t know William Gates Sr. went on the GI Bill, just that he was a big mover and shaker in the Seattle area. When I was growing up, he was almost as well known as his son locally.
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I only know what I’ve read on the internet. But he (Gates senior) seems to have earned what respect he has through hard work and good deeds.
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Interesting interview with the dude himself:
You have not met Bezos have you?
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Ahh, but that’s the younger Gates. We already know all about him. Any interviews with his dad, the one I was referring to?
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Whoops; careless reading on my part.
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Try this:
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Warren Buffett has pledged to give the majority of his wealth to charity before his death, and has begun a public pledge system for others to do the same.
Here are the pledges (PDF links) from Bloomberg, Buffett, Bill & Melinda Gates, and Larry Ellison. Also Zuckerberg.
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That’s not how stocks worked for most of the past century. People did not buy stocks expecting them to go up in value - perhaps keep pace with inflation, but that’s not how you made money on stocks. You bought stocks, which gave you ownership in a company, and those stocks then paid dividends, your share of the profits for investing in the company. That’s what stocks were supposed to be about and why they were allowed. You could then sell the shares, because their inherent value was the future dividends of those stocks, i.e., the future ability of that company to generate profit/dividends.
The way it is now, it’s just gambling and adds no value to the economy, except for those few stocks that still pay a decent dividend.
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This BBC Radio programme, The Sociology of the 1% of the 1% (stream available for a couple of weeks, and there’s also a podcast link at the bottom of the page), is relevant, I think.
To summarise: Big Data can track the super-rich as easily as any other social group, perhaps more easily than anyone else, since their mere existence distorts the economy all around them. The money of the super-rich billionaires is typically managed by merely rich financial advisors and accountants (defined by the study mentioned in the programme as those with over a million in investible assets), and in several cities the haunts of the rich are being taken over by these financial institutions, with classic townhouses being hollowed out and filled with financial servers.
In fact, in the cities with the greatest concentration of billionaires (e.g. London with 77 billionaires), even the rich are finding it hard to afford to live, as the billionaires build up and down in their quest to avoid the ordinary people around them, warping local property prices to levels that only billionaires can afford. Their quest for exclusivity leads to them being escorted by bodyguards whenever they visit the less “safe” areas of the city (e.g. Notting Hill, a thoroughly gentrified part of London), flying by helicopter further afield, and holidays on their €50 million yachts, safely insulated from the hoi polloi.
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The Gates family are well known Democrat stalwarts. Most Microsoft employees, at least a decade ago, were Democrats as well (and being situated in the Bluest part of Washington state, this is not surprising).
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This is still the case. Last time I met a hardcore outspoken conservative at MS was 2009. Although I’m sure some don’t care to pick fights and just keep their politics to themselves.
I am wiling to bet half my wealth that you are completely wrong about Larry Ellison. So far the entirety of his charitable giving has been self-benefitting.
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That’s largely on point- It’s that I genuinely do believe in the American dream, in upward mobility, that a black man born to an immigrant and raised by single mother can be smart and hardworking and grow up to be president, or that a single mom on welfare can start writing down the stories in her head and end up with a bestselling series of books, record breaking film adaptations, and a million merchandising opportunities.
The question is how to level the playing field in such a way that the incentive to succeed is still there, while still ensuring that the success of one person helps, rather than hinders, the chances of any other given person to also succeed. It’s how to ensure that success comes less from luck than from good ideas, hard work, and perseverance. It’s how to be certain that nobody falls through the cracks, and no matter what, nobody goes hungry or homeless.
And that is a question with both philosophical and practical complications too numerous to list. What we can agree on is that what we’re doing now isn’t working.
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Wait, are you talking about the single mom on welfare who wrote a bestselling series of books that I think you’re talking about? Because if it’s the one who wrote about wizards then her success story has very little to do with the “American” dream.
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Possibly not the best example, since he was largely raised in his formative years by his white bank-VP grandmother while he was attending the top private school in the most diverse state in the country.
My father was homeless for a while while he was a child, and he had to drop out of high school to support his mother and younger siblings. My sister and I, meanwhile, grew up to be (respectively) a federal prosecutor and a university professor, both comfortably middle-class. This was possible thanks to the availability of good public education…not so much in the South Bronx where my father grew up, but in the neighborhoods he was able to stretch into by the time we were born, and in the ability of education to translate into good jobs. Some of these engines of upward mobility have deteriorated in the past generation, and there is strong pressure (eg from the probable incoming Education Secretary) to weaken them further. (The ability of people from some ethnic groups to move into the best school district they could afford has been a problem for a long time, of course.)
This might be a little self-serving, but I think it makes more sense to focus one’s ire on those who are attacking the things that make upward mobility possible, and on those who refuse to acknowledge the role society had in providing them a comfortable life, and not give Bill Gates a hard time because his father managed to provide him a nice middle-class upbringing, especially since both Gates and his father pretty clearly acknowledge the source of their wealth and support policy which would transfer a respectable share of that wealth into the mobility engine.
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It’s the principle of the thing. We call it the American Dream, but its not like we have a monopoly on the idea of upward mobility.
Still a profound difference from his predecessor, born a third generation millionaire to a political dynasty, fucked off for his whole life, and handed the presidency.
And seriously guys- principle of the thing. How to reward success without punishing those who start at a disadvantage? How to see that people don’t steal the rungs on their way up the ladder?
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If you mean how to see to it that people don’t steal the rungs on their way up the ladder then yes, this.It would be nice too if people born high up the ladder were prevented from reaching down and stealing the rungs beneath them, and maybe admit that their family wasn’t put there by God.
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