Gates’ ‘Giving Pledge’ Blasted by German Millionaires

[Spiegel] Peter Krämer, a Hamburg-based shipping magnate and multimillionaire, has emerged as one of the strongest critics of the "Giving Pledge." Krämer, who donated millions of euros in 2005 to "Schools for Africa," a program operated by UNICEF, explained his opposition to the Gates initiative in a SPIEGEL interview.

Krämer stated, " I find the US initiative highly problematic. You can write donations off in your taxes to a large degree in the USA. So the rich make a choice: Would I rather donate or pay taxes? The donors are taking the place of the state. That's unacceptable."

He went on to say "It is all just a bad transfer of power from the state to billionaires. So it's not the state that determines what is good for the people, but rather the rich want to decide. That's a development that I find really bad. What legitimacy do these people have to decide where massive sums of money will flow?"

Kramer made a point to argue "that the US has a desolate social system and that alone is reason enough that donations are already a part of everyday life there. But it would have been a greater deed on the part of Mr. Gates or Mr. Buffet if they had given the money to small communities in the US so that they can fulfil public duties."

Kramer has a perfectly legitimate argument when he states that U.S. philanthropy has filled the vacuum where government has failed. He is also absolutely correct in his assertion that a society in which billionaire philanthropists who receive massive tax breaks for funding their personal pet projects is not a society that works for average people.

Guardian, columnist Peter Wilby wrote that letting rich people decide how to solve the world’s social problems is dangerous for democracy.

If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don’t kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill.

What is your opinion of these arguments? And, spare us the BS rhetoric about European socialism.