Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregmen, gave a speech to attendees at Davos earlier this year, calling out the strange hypocrisy of the ultra-wealthy talking about their philanthropy and spending toward the ‘common good’ and in a systen where many of the problems the developed nations face are due to money being pulled out of the system by theses same People. Using tax-avoidance schemes, the rich effectively crippled the infrastructure and social safety nets designed to help society at large; a completely common practice for most corporations and the wealthy. They then spend their riches on philanthropic endeavors like museums etc… which are nice, sure. But funding the opera is maybe not as valuable as a strong free health-care system or robust infrastructure and mass transit to most people.
You can find his book, Utopia for Realists on this subject.
Yaniv Fridman, Creative Director in Mexico City, animated a short section of this speech.
Anand Giridharadas is another writer who has been speaking a lot on the same topic and has a book out discussing the issue, Winners Take All: The elite charade of changing the world. This is on the list to read, and every interview Ive seen with him is very fun and enlightening. He puts the blame squarely on tax avoidance as well for many of the worlds current problems.
