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About half of the top 50 philanthropist dollars in the United States in 2014 were given by tech entrepreneurs, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Overall, the technology sector gave away $5 billion that year, though their charitable contributions dropped precipitously last year to $1.3 billion (possibly skewed due to the absence of "mega-gifts," such as a $2 billion donation by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014).
"There is a very real surge of philanthropy from tech sector leaders," says David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a news website that tracks nonprofits. "Many of these folks believe in giving early in life while still in their careers, as opposed to a more traditional model of waiting until later in life."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday November 11 2016, @04:40PM
Because in a society where everybody can make a decent living, it's too easy for the employees to tell the boss to Take This Job and Shove It [youtube.com], which makes things much more annoying for a boss who wants everyone to work 85+ hours per week while paying for 40 hours per week (this is what business types call "efficiency").
Capitalism as it is currently practiced will never, ever, create that society unless forced to do so by some other outside influence. In the 1950's in the US, the major outside influences that caused something close to that for some people:
1. Racism and sexism meant everyone was looking for white male workers when women and non-white people could have done many of the same jobs just as easily.
2. A shortage of male workers caused by that little dust-up in the early 1940's.
3. Unprecedented levels of union representation.
4. 90%+ tax rates on the highest incomes, discouraging CEOs from overpaying themselves. This was imposed mostly by Harry Truman, but Eisenhower kept it around for his term as well to help pay back the WWII war debt.
The liberals managed to undo much of racism and sexism in the 1960's and 1970's. The post-war Baby Boom took care of the shortage of workers. Richard Nixon and later Ronald Reagan started cutting back on those high tax rates. And in the 1980's and 1990's, Reagan, Bush, and Bill Clinton all stuck a knife into what was left of the unions.
And that's why 2010's America looks nothing like 1950's America, economically speaking.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 11 2016, @08:28PM
Trump got elected on the Grapes of Wrath.
I've had too much experience in dysfunctional workplaces. This heartless and negative management style that views workers as disposable cogs, and people as fundamentally lazy slackers who have to be constantly prodded to do work, is wasteful and destructive. I understand businesses are under enormous pressure to perform or die, but trying to improve their position by beating workers down is not the answer no matter how tempting and expedient that route looks. It's why slavery failed. The US Civil War, with one side practicing the grossest inequality of all, slavery, was the ultimate demonstration that a free society is stronger than a slave society. The conflict goes way back before that, to Persian vs Greeks, the fundamental East vs. West philosophy pitting autocratic control of a highly unequal class stratified society against a more egalitarian one. Time and time again, the autocrats lose those wars.
Yet I continue to encounter businesses who try to subjugate workers. There's the company town, financial indentureship through leaning on employees to take on massive debt to buy big ticket items so that they can't afford to tell the boss to "take this job and shove it", attempts to instill fear of being blacklisted from ever getting another job, the H1-B cudgel, and treating workers as if they are dim witted children through humiliating micromanagement. It's all about the imbalance of power and abuse of that fact.
Many of the wealthy and powerful did not earn and do not merit authority. Some know it, secretly admit it to themselves, and behave as mean little degenerate trolls filled with envy and spite, getting their kicks from bossing around and humiliating their betters. Some kind of play chicken with their situation, doing ever more outrageous things, pushing the envelope to see how much they can get away with. Nepotism and cronyism are perhaps the biggest contributors to that. If workers have no power, no options, there's not much they can do about an abusive boss. What are you going to do if your boss sexually harasses you or your spouse? Shut up and take it so you don't lose your job? Not unless the power imbalance is extreme.
Capitalism works great when it's not corrupted. The problem is how to keep it clean.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 11 2016, @11:35PM
Capitalism works great when it's not corrupted. The problem is how to keep it clean.
Almost all economic systems work. *IF* people follow the rules.
The problem is people do not follow them. I call it that person 'the dick'. At that point you need more rules and take away power from everyone all because 1 dude decided not to play the right way. In communistic societies it is the lazy worker who does nothing. In capitalistic societies it is is the guy who figures out it is more profitable to buy the system and appoint themselves as the ones to get all the rewards.
People bemoan 'there must be a better way'. I doubt it. All systems seem to have a way to game them.