Currently, our geo-economic systems are structured such that the world's underclasses rely on the emotions of the wealthiest 0.0001% of homo sapiens in America to continually fund triage operations to ameliorate problems that societies have developed institutionalized solutions to.

I think this argument misses, or even reinforces a core criticism about the concentration of wealth. The criticism is that so much and such disproportionate power should not be concentrated in the hands of one individual.

It's fundamentally undemocratic and a danger to society. In a democracy a broad-based group of citizens should be deciding where charitable resources are allocated. It's in aristocracies were a few wealthy control all the assets and make the decisions. Democracies were formed as a rejection of aristocracy, the U.S. in particular.

It's self-reinforcing: If the local 'aristocrat' funds a park, people are grateful because there were no other funds and now we have a park. But there are no other funds because we have a system that creates aristocrats and by concentrating wealth also creates the need for their charity, and instead of the citizens deciding democratically about their parks, the aristocrat decides.

Gates might be an enlightened despot but he's still a despot (in an exaggerated, metaphorical sense). We know what happens to nations and political systems that fall in love with enlightened despots.

> Somebody who donates a million (while a great contribution), will never have the impact that a billionaire can.

1,000 people who donate a million will have exactly the same impact as one who donates a billion and will be far more democratic. Far better: Each person makes an equal sacrifice (via a progressive taxation system) and we vote on how to spend the money.

Except if they don't. Or they do to a variety of causes, each with duplicate administrative overhead.

I'm not a fan of wealth concentration, but it does afford patronage opportunities that simply aren't taken on average in the alternative "more people with less money" world.

Except when the billionaire doesn't. Is there evidence that billionaires donate a greater proportion of their wealth or more effectively than millionaires? Is a market of 1 more efficient than a market of 1,000?

I'd bet that the law of large numbers applies here, and the 1,000 people are overall more consistent than 1 person, and less prone to extreme swings.

It sounds like the trickle-down economics version of philanthropy.

In an alternative universe we tax people more and ensure malaria eradication _whether or not Bill Gates personally decides to do so_.

There are obviously coordination problems (not saying that "government can solve everything!", there are difficulties there too). But having huge organizations ask for donations from people is a really ineffective way of solving most societal problems.

Government theoretically could solve everything but it requires good government to do so. The first step is what I stated above, respect for private property rights. If people cannot be assured their product of their work is theirs to use you cannot improve the society they live in. They must be able to trust their government.

Just because the Soviet Union fell over doesn't mean that capitalism has somehow been proven to be "the best solution".

>Just because the Soviet Union fell over doesn't mean that capitalism has somehow been proven to be "the best solution".

Name one country implemented socialism (and by that I mean the government owns the means of production) and didn't end up worse off than when it started. Even the Northern European welfare states are capitalist.

edit: My above interpretation isn't quite right. It should be "its state as of the latest known point in time the predicate was true."