That being said, it always irks me when people worship "philantropic" billionaires. I'm sure he's done good things. But there are no ethical billionaires in capitalism. TATA is a giant corp with a lot of influence, I can't believe that they're a 'honest company which doesn't bribe, pays their taxes and are otherwise clean'.
Would probably be the first case of an ethical corporation/billionaire :)
Certainly cool that he helped stray dogs and people with cancer, but come on people, see through the corpo propaganda. Sounds the same to me as "[INSERT US BILLIONARE] has donated 5 milion dollars to [CUTE CAUSE], what a hero! (ignore the atrocious things done by their corps and themselves)."
Sure, yeah. My reactionary, immature answer to this is, "someone who has murdered a single person is not that bad when compared to a serial killer", but i certainly get what you mean :)
That point is subjective. Now, this anecdote is from almost 30 years ago and pretty sure things have changed. But when I went to get my India DL you can go directly to the RTO or you go thru a “driving school”. I went thru the school - why? Because they grease the skids to get the DL. Did I bribe? No. Does the school share “profits” - I’m pretty sure they do.
So like everything else with the government in India, if you’re using agents to get your work done you’re technically not bribing. But you are.
> That being said, it always irks me when people worship "philantropic" billionaires.
I hate that people are using philanthropic to describe Tatas. The western description about it is some random guy who made a lot of money and then later in life decides to do some charity BS for good PR.
66% of everything of revenues from Tata Group of companies goes to Tata Sons - which is a charity trust. Not to the boardroom. This is not some random billionaire paid some money for PR.
This is also why you are wrong. He was never a billionaire because the majority of the money didn't come to him. But to the different charities which opens high class cancer treatment hospitals and other charitable endeavours.
You should read up more about Tata. How they operate. Then you will understand Tata - the brand and the Tatas the people behind it.
Not Indian and not personally affective. I came from a society quite similar in terms of cultural e socio-economical background with India and maybe there’s a missing point.
I got your point and you’re right in terms of worship philanthropic people with a lot of money.
However, there’s one aspect that is overlooked when a person that helped and/or serves as reference for a bunch of people that is the “emotional gratitude” or “sense of reference” that those people has in some peoples mind and no matter how much of objective and maybe correct post-mortem criticism will change people’s mind.
At the limit, any public figure can, with little scrutiny, be framed as bad.
One example from my country: Ayrton Senna (deceased F1 Driver) even being a millionaire, coming from a very privileged background in 80s in a country that used to have at least 40% of its people below the poverty line.
Even not doing (during life) objectively nothing for poor people, a lot of folks (me included) consider the guy as a reference, in some cases as a hero. When he died a lot of folks felt that they lost their “hero” and actually he had a state funeral that no other Brazilian will ever have again [1].
My point is that there’s more nuance and layers around that topic when someone with a lot of money dies, and there’s no right or wrong since we’re al humans.
That being said, it always irks me when people worship "philantropic" billionaires. I'm sure he's done good things. But there are no ethical billionaires in capitalism. TATA is a giant corp with a lot of influence, I can't believe that they're a 'honest company which doesn't bribe, pays their taxes and are otherwise clean'.
Would probably be the first case of an ethical corporation/billionaire :)
Certainly cool that he helped stray dogs and people with cancer, but come on people, see through the corpo propaganda. Sounds the same to me as "[INSERT US BILLIONARE] has donated 5 milion dollars to [CUTE CAUSE], what a hero! (ignore the atrocious things done by their corps and themselves)."