Are the poor better off if everyone attended to their self-interest instead of going out and finding poor people to dole out money to?
Could Bill and Melinda have contributed more good to the world if they never created a foundation and all of those resources were invested in the private sector?
To be clear, what I mean by self-interest is enriching oneself and (for me at least) that includes helping those whom one regularly has contact with like family and friends and in the local community. This is different from charity in the large ‘social’ sphere where you give money to people you don’t even know or the professional humanitarian type of altruism. Why do I make this distinction? Because if you are self-interested in the narrow sense of the word, then you become isolated from family and friends. If you are mugged in your local community, nobody will come and help you. Can’t have a society where everyone is self-interested in this sense.
In reference to the Gates’ issue, I looked at the wiki entry of their foundation and found no logically sanctioned criticism of the foundation. It’s like the criticisms were written by the private-charity-hating left.
One of the criticisms is that the foundation diverts medical professionals from basic care into specialists fighting against aids by paying high salaries so therefore there will be few left for other important ailments. This would be true if the foundation were a state and taxed basic care professionals to pay professionals dealing with AIDS. But no, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation injected their own capital and is therefore a net plus.
So I would like to know if there is a criticism of it from free-market advocates relating to the question at the outset of course.
Since we’re at this, how would the free market cure AIDS.