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Comment by michaelangerman | Hacker News Reader

Besides monarchs in the past, for the first time in the history of Planet Earth we have many people and corporations that have more money than governments and so with that comes the responsibility of "acting accordingly". I believe that in a good light this will continue to assist humanity in ways never thought of before as human ingenuity is always more nimble than large bureaucratic organizations.

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Andrew Carnegie definitely had "more money than governments". Same with other titans of that time.

He was a really shit person when in came to labor -- hiring literal private armies to straight up lay siege to his workers -- but he did basically create the "rich guy gives away his money as a social obligation" model of... maintaining... democratic... government? Or, to be less coy, model of staving off communist/socialist/fascist revolution. I truly and sincerely hope today's ultra billionaires are as smart and realistic as Carnegie in this respect.

Carnegie emphasized education in his giving. Limited success. His library movement was largely successful, but his trade school turned into yet another hyper expensive prestinge-driven private university. Although I guess it was the brith-place of a lot of the computer technologies that made the current crop of ultra billionaires rich.

I think we're over-due for someone to emphasize healthcare in their giving. (Gates did this, but not in the USA.) We're also over due for a labor backlash against this sort of obscene wealth concentration (and not even as a value-laden statement... just as a "lessons from history" thing, the pendulum will probably swing).

That trade school which is now CMU did not start out being a hyper expensive prestige driven university. For years prior to the computer era it was a humble university in Pittsburgh.

"In 1900, he donated $1 million for the creation of a technical institute for the city of Pittsburgh, envisioning a school where working-class men and women of Pittsburgh could learn practical skills, trades and crafts that would enhance their careers, lives and communities."

It was not until the dawn of the computer era that things started to change.

https://www.cmu.edu/about/history.html

See this link for more details.

Yeah, it served its intended purpose for a long time. It's extremely difficult for a wildly successful university from humble roots to stay true to its roots. Even public institutions mostly fail to stay accessible after becoming successful.

CMU has damn close to zero "working class men and women from Pittsburgh" in its student body these days, unless by "working class" you mean "parents were doctors, lawyers, and software engineers from shadyside/squill/fox chapel/etc." :(. On the other hand, it is one of the two big reasons Pittsburgh experienced a renaissance in the early 21st century (which continues to this day), and in that sense did achieve the goal of helping the Pittsburgh community thrive. Just not by elevating working class folk.

There was also a modest contribution toward basic scientific research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Institution_for_Scien...

Some astronomical observatories built atop certain mountains were built with his funding.

He was a really shit person when in came to labor -- hiring literal private armies to straight up lay siege to his workers

That’s interesting. Why would he “lay siege” to workers? Were they hiding somewhere behind fortifications, and he was trying to force them to work, or what? It’s hard for me to imagine circumstances where capitalists would even find it useful to “lay siege” to workers.

if only historical accounts existed of this mythical time.

Well, maybe instead of sarcastic remarks you will be the one to point me to some historical accounts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike

Ah, now it makes more sense: he wasn’t laying siege to workers, but rather to his own factory the workers were illegally occupying, and refusing to let in him or other workers, and after they kicked out the Sheriff, who was initially called to lawfully remove them. Finally, the occupation was dispersed by state militia. Yeah, now it all falls into place, except it’s still unclear to me which part exactly makes Carnegie a “shit person” here.

Oof. I don't think anyone in the world is interested in re-litigating 100 year old labor politics with you.

Who has more money than governments? Sergey Brin is worth about $65 billion. The US federal budget is ~$3 trillion _per year_

Here is one example...

5. Niger: Wealth per Adult: $1,017 Niger is the largest nation in West Africa, but more than 80% of its land area is in the Sahara Desert, so it is prone to drought and famine. The GDP as of 2017 was $9.87 billion, but the wealth per adult remained low despite economic reforms.

Reference:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/managing-wealth/112916...

To keep that in perspective, the GDP of Niger (population 22 million) is about the annual budget of San Francisco (population 900 thousand).

Is comparing very poor countries to individuals from very rich countries a relevant framing? Global wealth disparities aren't a new phenomenon (and global wealth inequality is decreasing!)

Usually these comparisons are not very fair because it’s done by currency exchange rate conversion. For example, a person with mere $800 per month income in India can have superior life style than minimum wage worker in USA.

Mansa Musa is said to have been so wealthy he crashed the economy of Egypt by giving away gold. Extremely wealthy people is not a new phenomenon. Maybe monarchs don't count because they're so wealthy they own entire countries outright? It seems to me that makes them more wealthy, not less.

> Mansa Musa

That's a bit of a confusing thing, though, because he was also the emperor. (OT: I often wonder if his story is well-known in tech circles because of the end date of his reign.)

> That's a bit of a confusing thing, though, because he was also the emperor.

That's kind of my point though; owning an empire is an extreme form of wealth, well beyond what any of the American tech billionaires have.

They have revenues of ~$3 trillion and expenses of ~$4 trillion so...

There are other governments, though.

Well sure. A ton of people have more money than Nauru, or not restricting to international, cities and villages.

The US is the wealthiest country on earth. Sergei Brin's checking account would be the 74th largest GDP in the world.

Checking account or total value of investments?

It was a figure of speech. Obviously he doesn't have an 11 figure bank balance.

Why are you comparing somebody’s net worth to a GDP, which is a rate? That makes zero sense.

No, it does make sense: Brin could pay to run the 74th largest economy for a year.

That's not what GDP means, and also a person's net worth is not necessarily liquid.

The annual budget for just San Francisco is $12 billion (https://sfbos.org/supervisor-fewer-budget-information). That's 20% of Sergey Brin's net worth.

So no, I don't think that any billionaire is even remotely close to being able to sustainably spend what any country-level government can.

For another reference: the smallest GDP listed at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no... is ~$40B, and government spending is usually some 10s of percent of GDP.

You should read a biography of J.P. Morgan sometime. In the 1890’s he bailed out the US government, and during the Panic of 1907 he basically bailed out the entire economy.

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