Another civil society and volunteerism in action. Giving away one's own money,
not other people's money collected by force.
"Mark Zuckerberg and his wife pledged to give away
virtually all of their $46 billion in Facebook Inc. shares, setting a new
philanthropic benchmark by committing their massive fortune to charitable
causes while still in their early 30s.... promising to donate 99 percent of
their stock in the social-networking company "during our lives."
So not entirely by next year or next 5 years. He plans to
increase his wealth from the current $45B to perhaps $100B or $300B, then give
away 99% of it. Maybe in 20 years. It's all about volunteerism, not coercion.
"Zuckerberg and Chan have already donated more than
$1.6 billion to charity in the past decade, including a $100 million gift to
the Newark Public School System, a $25 million donation to the CDC to stop the
spread of Ebola, and a $120 million commitment to education in the Bay
Area." -- from the BI article above.
So there is record already, gave even before
announcing this new initiative.
This is a new phase of global capitalism. Those
super-super rich, they see that governments are getting more bureaucratic, more
coercive and even more stupid, they do not like how their huge tax money is
being spent by those governments. So they spend and distribute their OWN money
to see more meaningful results.
Politics of envy 1: rich people don't give to charity, damn them.
rich people give to charity, directly or indirectly,
still damn them.
Politics of envy 2. All people, rich and middle class and poor alike,
should be disempowered to do charity projects. Only the government, its
politicians, legislators and officials/bureaucrats can be trusted. wow.
"It is all just a bad transfer of power from the
state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for
the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I
find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive
sums of money will flow?" http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-skeptics...
Politics of envy 3: Only government central planners can do real charity,
wow.
“I applaud their emphasis on ‘promoting equality,’ but
that starts with paying one’s taxes,” said Gabriel Zucman, an economics
professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “A society where rich
people decide for themselves how much taxes they pay and to what public goods
they are willing to contribute is not a civilized society.”
"by using an LLC instead of a traditional
foundation, we receive no tax benefit from transferring our shares to the Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative, but we gain flexibility to execute our mission more
effectively." Zuckerberg said that if his intentions were to avoid tax, he
could've simply set up a charity. "If we transferred our shares to a
traditional foundation," he wrote, "then we would have received an
immediate tax benefit, but by using an LLC we do not. And just like everyone
else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the
LLC."
He posted: "This enables us to pursue our mission by
funding nonprofit organisations, making private investments and participating
in policy debates — in each case with the goal of generating a positive impact
in areas of great need.
"Any net profits from investments will also be used
to advance this mission."
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