“I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it.” This was how Pope Francis's message ended at this year's economic Forum which has ha numerous sessions about how to achieve a worthy life and true happiness. This forum is the yearly gathering of the "chieftains of industry" who listen to economists from around the world and schmooze with each other. However, this idea of social responsibility and the rich sharing their wealth is a topic this year that has received mixed feelings. Some are all for helping out the less fortune but others aren't too keen on this idea of redistributing the wealth. They find it unfair that they have to take money out of their pocket no matter if its willingly or forced. So I ask, do we have a responsibility to help out the less fortune? Should we all contribute an equal amount or should people who are better off (aka the rich) contribute more?
Social Responsibility Weighs Heavy on Economic Chieftains at Davos
4 comments:
Well yeah I think it would be nice if rich people contribute more. However, I don't think that there should be any enforcement to how much one should contribute. My last supervisor said he wouldn't mind donate for the charity but he felt like he got robbed by the government when have to pay the high taxes
From the article's description of the events at The World Economic Forum, it seems as if the focus was more on getting the wealthy to give charitably to the poor, rather than achieving equality, which are two very different things. The wealthy will only donate to the poor because it makes them feel good about themselves, and they can afford to give away some of their money. Achieving equality, on the other hand, would have to come from a structural change to society.
This is an extremely interesting question that was posed at Davos where the heads of most banking and finance institutions gather. This has been a question that been posed to every single government ever. Like Dr. Skosples said peoples perspective on taxes are based on the culture they come from, which in turn is, or does, determine the economic structure of that country. Furthermore based on the economic situation of some countries, economic systems at that time might be set up to reflect the goals of that country like incentivising savings vs incentivising spending. The US obviously tries to incentivise spending, but it captures a lot of the worlds savings, which it probably spends on long term projects etc. Other countries however need their citizens to save more and hence they tax expenditure highly and reward savings. For eg. The Savings account interest rate, that one gets in countries like India is approximately 10% p.a. compared to 0.001% in the US.
For some of these high-ranked people they do not realize how far a dollar can go. They can either buy a new average priced car for $12,500-$32,000 or a make a brand new school in Africa that could alleviate hundreds out of poverty. Would having nine cars instead of ten really matter? In the U.S. especially people are obsessed with material items that they forget about relationships and good, honest, personal contact. In my opinion if you have money you should be able to give part of it away. I understand wanting a big house and saving money for your children's education. In the end what does money really do? If your stranded on an island with a million dollars it won't help you, it is what we learn and how we affect people around us.
Some people are not given even the slightest opportunity so shouldn't the people with hundreds of opportunities be able to share one or two of them with someone else who has none?
We are all humans and thus it should be the "cool thing" to redistribute wealth.
I understand why some people do not want to increase taxes but giving to non-profits or NGOs would be a nice thing to do. Otherwise the inequality gap will keep increasing.
There still should be incentives for people to work, but people should want to work to help others. I do not think there should be coercion incentive. But this is one way of a moral incentive, to help others. Instead our world is surrounded by material incentive, which has just created inequality.
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