Bill Gates on the advice of his father decided that he did not want history to remember him as a ruthless businessman but as a generous philanthropist.

Most of our lot here do not care.

I don’t think we need to posit that the wealth of the richest families is either illegally or immorally gained, to conclude that it is *unfairly* gained. As people like Warren Buffet (quoted above) will readily admit, different talents and different kinds of effort are rewarded (by our society and by the physical reality of the universe) in different ways, and the results are patently inequitable. Not necessarily through any fault of those people who come out on top.

To add the point that many of those who come out on top are ready to defend and increase their wealth through further gaming or stacking the system in their own favour (illegally or otherwise) is just the icing on the cake.

And they won’t give more away because they don’t give a toss about what people say, in fact their cynicism is just palpable. I once went to Christmas party in Toorak and was surprised to see the theme was, Soviet Era dress and paraphernalia. Why? Because that was the country they made most of their money that year. So we were walking around this mansion looking at the host and others dressed as Soviet generals. Then the host told us a joke that when he arrived at a Russian airport in what he thought was HIS very large private jet, he was stunned to see all the Russian Oligarchs had bigger jets. Yeah, all of us “wage slaves” thought it was funny, ha,ha,ha.

I one stood on the Place de la Concorde and thought of the possibilities. The French certainty knew how to revolt.

You should all read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins. Google it.
Also see: vancepackard.com

And another thing, they start them young these days:

“Xavier students go on $6000 shoplifting spree on school trip to New Zealand” The Age - 19-7-2010.

Shalom

Without knowing whether this is true or false, I can respond that:

If the claims of immorailty are true, then the righteous anger directed at the rich in Australia is a ridiculous waste of time and energy. I can’t believe that anyone who has committed all sorts of evil in the accumulation of wealth would then suddently bow to the moral obligation that Daniel (the author) and the posters are trying to ascribe to them and be motivated to donate money to charitable causes. Even if they write 100 articles and 100 blog posts each. Even if they could - that would not be a solution. The solution isn’t voluntary donation, it’s jail.

If the claims of immorality are false and the wealth is accumulated through harder work, better judgement and perseverance (as I had initially (naively?) assumed), then what I said earlier stands - it is up to the people who produced their wealth to decide how to use it.

Inherited wealth might be a slightly more difficult topic, but I think that it too is reducible to the reasoning above.

You seem to believe that all rich folk are guilty of something illegal.

Put this into perspective on a global scale. If, as is highly probable, you are one of Australia’s great majority who earn at least $20k after tax each year, then you are filthy rich in the eyes of about 3/4 of the world’s population.

Are you, thus, as guilty as those who you accuse of being guilty?

Let’s leave the supposed guilt or otherwise out of this. The issue is not HOW Australia’s richest people made their money, but WHAT they do with it.

In order for people to see the inequity of what is going on more publicity is needed of the illegal activities of the rich so as people can grasp just how greedy these people actually are.

The fact that famous Australians that are called “Ausie heroes” “live” in tax havens in order not to pay tax is scandalous. One of our “famous sporting heroes” who shall remain nameless, got an “Honour” from the Government one year and had to quickly move his affairs back to Australia to avoid embarrassment.

There is very little scrutiny in Australia of these activities. And why would there be? The rich own the media and we all remember Packer who would brag about about how little tax he paid.

The state establishes a system of making and enforcing contracts which are unfair and exploitative but nonetheless legal. Wealthy people, amongst others, use the state’s system of contractual enforcement to make and retain their wealth. Likewise the systems of real and intellectual property, employment, torts and many other systems established and maintained by the state are vital to the accumulation of private property.

www.crikey.com.au/2009/07/28/meet-the-philanthropist-who-embarrasses-the-rich-a-listers

As it happens Australia’s top biomedical research institutes owe either their origins to wealthy benefactors (Walter & Eliza Hall Institute [Mining money as it happens]; Garvan Inst., Murdoch Childrens Res.Inst.) or their recent substantial expansion: QIMR, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Queensland Brain Institute and Diamantina Institute (director: Ian Fraser). The second list is the remarkable result of over $400M from one man: Chuck Feeney and his Atlantic Philanthropies. Yep not an Australian but an Irish-American! (Incidentally the benefactor of the Murdoch Childrens is Dame Elizabeth not her son, who so far shows no inclination to follow in the footsteps of his American brethren billionaires.)

Here is an extract of what I wrote in a Crikey that highlighted Feeney’s largesse (also see Andrew Clark’s article in Crikey):

“In one of their first media interviews[www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s932485.htm], John Healy the CEO of Atlantic Philanthropies responding to the interviewers’ lament that AP was rapidly depleting its funds, noted that:

“Chuck Feeney once said in an interview, ‘I believe that people of substantial wealth potentially create problems for future generations unless they themselves accept responsibility to use their wealth during their lifetime to help worthwhile causes.’

This is a terrific version of SKI (Spending the Kids Inheritance); AP has given away about $3.4 billion to date, which has probably been leveraged up to maybe $7B in research funds. Instead, in Australia some of the richest seem intent on building dynasties or owning the biggest (yacht/harbourside-mansion/country estate….). In the most egregious example, said dynasty is getting rich from exploiting Australians’ gambling addictions. But dare we think it, it could also apply to the PM and wannabee-PM’s family fortunes? Pour encourager les autres?”

And I don’t see what’s wrong with criticising a group for being far far less charitable than others in a similar financial situation. As you say, the wealth is THEIRS. They are totally responsible for whatever they do with THEIR wealth, and any evils that could have been prevented through giving more of it away are THEIR fault.

Funny that the land of Peter Singer has the most uncharitable rich people.

It seems to me that most if not all multimillionaires have at some stage committed some criminal acts to get their wealth. The Kennedys in the US got rich by bootlegging whiskey from Canada to the US during Prohibition, Yale University was set up with money from the Opium wars, etc. etc.

Closer to home, you may not remember the “Bottom of the harbour scheme” perpetrated by the rich to avoid tax and other statutory obligations.

Most business men are crooks in a variety of ways. The entire GFC has been a way for the rich to steal hundreds of Billions of dollars from many countries. Maddoff only stole $80 billion. Other like him stole even more.

However, I am happy not to know you - you sound like a dry, unpleasant person, the type of human most of enjoy not having as a neighbour.

Lighten up - there is much pleasure and satisfaction to be had for sharing the good times.

As to the right to “criticize the rich”… the author is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is more than qualified to offer his opinion on this subject, regardless of your opinion.

Do you ever stop to think how lucky you have been in the lottery of life, not to have been born into an extremely poor family in, say, Bangladesh or Somalia? “There, but for the grace of God, etc”.

Humble, you certainly are not.

Their wealth is theirs. THEIR wealth. It is not up to you to determine what is ‘enough’ nor is it for anyone else.

I’m very glad I live in a country where do-gooder socialist are largely prevented from deciding what individuals do with their hard earned money (tax-and-spend government notwithstanding).

Yes, it would be nice in the 21st century to see multi-billionaires in Australia donating some reasonable part of their personal profits to those less privileged, but there is no long-term, ongoing, historical model for that behaviour as there has been in the US. And, I am guessing, there are few billionaires in Australia who feel obliged to support those on so-called current ‘welfare benefits’, even if the reality of that description has been watered down to subsistence dwelling (think old age pension) by this date.

What your are asking is commendable. But there are few (if any) models, or role models, for such behaviour. And whilever what ‘welfare’ exists in Australia is lauded as world-class and equitable and caring (tosh and nonsense), there is no incentive.