Bourgeois class traitors are a rare breed, and bourgeois class traitors in powerful positions are a pipe dream. The capitalist class—which owns the means of production and gets its wealth by expropriating surplus value from the working class’ wages or by rent-seeking—are not going to save us.
I like Mark Cuban for the whole https://www.costplusdrugs.com/ thing he's doing. I have no idea whether or not he's a decent guy, but this is a decent thing to do, so I give him the benefit of the doubt.
Mark Cuban is the closest I can think of. Most of his wealth came from stocks he received when he sold his dot com business to Yahoo. He's invested a bunch after that. Now he does some decent things like his at cost prescriptions. He definitely seems personable and understands that he is extremely lucky.
Being that powerful and wealthy doesn’t happen without doing horrible things. Then, once a person achieves that status, the pressures change and they just become worse.
I have a benefit of the doubt thing here, not that any billionaire I've heard of deserves it. If I suddenly had a billion dollars, would I donate to an existing charity with an administration I don't know and trust or would I think "hmm I can better choose what happens with this money" and start my own charitable enterprise? Like a bill/Miranda Gates situation.
I know if I had a billion dollars worth of shares of a company I wouldn't necessarily liquidate it all for philanthropy either. Do I hold onto control of these stocks while attempting to guide the company in a more ethical way? Idk. It's an interesting thought
Being a billionaire is like staying alive long enough to be a villain. They were great at something but nothing justifies holding that much power for so long.
Jeff Atwood (stack overflow and discourse cofounder) seems pretty cool for someone who made a shitton of money in tech. Everyone I know who's met him says he's a nice and normal human being, and he's currently funding a UBI program as well as giving copiously to high-quality charities.
Closest I can think of is post-Microsoft Bill Gates, with the humanitarian/healthcare stuff he's been involved in. He was a total piece of shit as Microsoft's CEO, though, what with the aggressive anti-trust practices and all. Not that the ones that came after were much better (especially Ballmer).
What Gates is doing right now is a massive publicity stunt to make people believe he's actually a "good person". He is not. He is still a disgusting billionaire that contradicts everything he preaches.
He is constantly buying farmland, to the point where he's the biggest land owner in the whole US. This is seriously harming small farmers.
He preaches about climate change and using cardboard straws while in his massive ($650M!) mega yacht
The "humanitarian/healthcare" stuff he did, while helpful, was only done because he could use it as a tax writeoff. He wouldn't have done it if it wasn't the case.
• He has unimaginable influence. Doesn't the change he makes outweight his mega yacht? (Yes I now how ridiculously expensive these monster ships are) I doubt he is only committing to netto his yacht.
• Oh you know him well, could you make a meeting happen? I have an idea
The Gates foundation explicitly lobbied against Oxford's initial plan to open source their covid vaccine. Gates' worship of intellectual propery law is responsible for the patent on the astrazeneca vaccine. The project was initially started under the hope that the third world being able to manufacture their own vaccines without owing royalties would be important in limiting the spread of covid.
I remember reading about that at the time but couldn't find a reliable source to back that claim. Fascists and anti-vaxxers love to scapegoat Gates along with George Soros (and jews in general) so I kind of dismissed it as far-right misinfo. Sucks if actually true, though.
When people say "climbing the corporate ladder" the only image that comes to mind is a ladder shape made of coworkers and whoever is capable of stepping on more heads is declared the winner
If they were genuinely good people they wouldn't be in the 1%.
Being 1% is not just rich, not just disgustingly rich, you needed to have exploited BILLIONS of people for DECADES and had no moral qualms about it. If you did, you would have stopped long before you reached that high.
It's like asking if any 1st degree murderers did it by accident.
Seems like everyone is getting the 1% confused with billionaires. The average 1%er is something like a doctor or a plumber that owns his own business, not the assholes floating around on superyachts.
That doesn’t sound like the 1%. There are 3.6 million 1%ers in the US alone, by definition. Being in the 1% might you very comfortable but it won’t necessarily make you an evil overlord. For that I suspect you need to be in the 0.001% (meaning there’s 3600ish in the US, a more manageable group of absolute bastard. There aren’t 3.6 million disgustingly rich people in the US.
it's not a moral problem per se. it doesn't matter if members of the so called 1% are personally good or bad. if they reached those positions then they are performing roles that are prejudicial for the society.
politics is less about people's morality or intentions. it's about what they effectively do.
Scott Galloway has consistently advocated for younger generations and criticized the accumulation of wealth in the boomer generation and 1%. Check out his TED talk
https://youtu.be/qEJ4hkpQW8E
If you have enough money to be in the 1% and choose to keep it to remain in the 1% instead of using it to right the many many wrongs in the world, you can't be a good person.
Just having that much money, and not using it is a moral failing.
There are no good 1%ers. Doing philanthropy with your excessive fortune isn't worthy of applause, it's simply the easiest way to give. And more often than not they still do not. Using your influence (acquired through fortune) is hollow as hell too like why should we listen to you? Because you're loaded?? Nah but thanks for the dono.
There are good rich people but they are rich in other resources, usually immaterial.