cannonball said:
This is not anybody's solution to "How do we support world issues?", it's one opportunity to put a little more money into these efforts, money we were all going to spend anyway.
I agree 100% it's not a solution and I'll say that I am in favor of any product that puts money towards any type of aid. This post is only directed to the dollar amount Apple and other Red supporters are giving, not what charities are getting the money, nor what they are using it for, nor the topic of aids.
I have read a couple pages of posts on this thread and it seems a lot of people are very supportive of the donations, while others aren't impressed.
In my opinion, people against the donation do not either like capitalism, or they just do not understand capitalism. If you don't like it, fair enough, but if you're in the states or Canada (as far as I can speak for), it has brought us a very high quality of life. I realize capitalism has lead to exploitation (which is subjective) of a lot of people and it's not perfect (if there are other reasons you have, fine). But I feel some people do not quite understand how economies are built or sustained.
Many many years ago the United States and Canadian governments chose to implement the fundamental ideas of economic freedom and consumer sovereignty. They chose to use a free market system. The reason we have a high standard of living is because firms make profits and create wealth. New wealth is what makes the economy grow.
Where the problem of inequality could have been solved is when powerful economies were developing. Had their governments implemented policies where a wealth transfer occurred to struggling economies we may not be in a greatly unequal world. But should there had been such a policy, stronger economies would have been made worse off (vis-a-vis transfer seeking), and most likely developing countries wouldn't have been all that much better (since they did not have efficient market systems). It's not relevant at this point. Or perhaps economically strong governments could have "educated" other governments, but look where imposing efficient systems on other countries has gotten the world.
What I'm trying to say is that it's not the fault of profit-seeking corporations that the world has developed the way it has. If anyone is to blame it's Government. Firms work in a market structure their governments create. And since governments are made up of people (who don't forget have their own self-interests at hand), these market structures are by no means perfect. Further, a large dependent on a firm's ability to transfer wealth to charitable organizations is the type of industry it's in (perfectly competitive, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly, etc) and whether there are incentives (e.g. tax which is dictated by government). It is impossible to be able to predict future events like externalities (e.g. pollution/global warming). In hindsight everything is 20/20 though. Furthermore, once a problem is apparent, it takes a long time to fix it because of the lag policies have. My point here is that change has to come through government, and firms will not seek out more expensive ways to save the environment, or transfer a large majority of their wealth (even to help people) if they are just putting themselves in a more vulnerable position to collapse.
Notwithstanding, there is no doubt the basic fundamentals of fairness and equality on a global scale are lacking. But think about it, how long did it take for women, minorities to get equal rights (I realize this is still a large ongoing issue) in North America alone. I understand the frustrations of people wanting the world to be a better place now, but it takes time.
