But the idea that it’s wise to accumulate wealth among a very few because this allows those individuals to pursue their idiosyncratic philanthropic impulses — I think you’d probably admit that there’s a lot more work to be done before this is a complete argument. This post and the linked post provide a number of anecdotal appeals, but of course that’s not really sufficient to make the case that this is a socially optimal system for using that wealth (and even among the anecdotes, I think it’s tough to look at the John Gilmore example and conclude that the money is being efficiently spent (except as personal consumption/entertainment) by virtually any measure of utility).

And, if I can respond to those pointing out the systemic problems associated with letting governments spend “surplus” wealth (e.g. governments tend to find excuses to kill non-citizens): there are problems with the private philanthropic model, too, even beyond individuals’ sometimes-flawed ideas about how to spend their money for others’ benefit. For instance, I listened to a quiz show this morning on NPR thanks in part to the generosity of an endowment dedicated to the eradication of nuclear weapons! How this underwriting expense served that goal, I have no idea. But I suspect there’s a sizable endowment somewhere helping provide me with my Sunday morning entertainment, all thanks to the legacy of some dead guy who may or may not have cared a whit about public radio.

Admittedly, wasting money on NPR is substantially less problematic than wasting it on killing foreigners and destroying their property. Still, I think it’s hard to claim that these funds are applied thoughtfully by private philanthropy. Any genuinely large endowment will tend to quickly fall into the hands of managers who face a very different set of incentives than did the person who earned the money.

Well, I think maybe there are 2 contexts there — the support for the policy could be decentralized, in that genuinely many people might support it, but the actual implementation of it could be centralized or decentralized, though obviously things run by the federal government tend towards the former.

Not that I really want anyone to follow this advice, Ferny, but fear-mongering is the obvious way to ensure spending on your favored programs. It doesn’t matter if most Americans will never be affected by the issues that are important to you, if you can somehow make them afraid that they will be. Follow the example of those who have succeeded at fleecing the American taxpayer!

I’m not sure, but there may be an interesting top-down/bottom-up dynamic at work here. If a large enough group of brainwashed voters support an awful spending program, does it matter that their “consent” is “manufactured”? This is still bottom-up, right?

Agreed. It would be one thing if A) the poor were getting worse off on average or B) the rich were creating inequality by stealing from the poor, but neither of these things seem to be true in our case. (Yes, I know they are true in some specific circumstances, but there is not the general perception that it is the case) Will Wilkinson has a bunch of posts about how injustice seems to be a lot more important to people than inequality.

It’s my impression that generally the ultra-rich don’t simply stash all their money in a savings account. Even rich people who aren’t being actively philanthropic tend to do things like invest their money in business. How many high-quality jobs are provided by Google these days, and how would that change if initial investors had to consider a very high marginal tax rate at the outset?

I’m not insensitive to the arguments centering around “inequality”, but most of them seem to be short-sighted, overly simplistic “nobody needs that much money” sorts of things. It’s not a zero-sum game; we all benefit when more people are able to vigorously participate in the economy.