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Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism'
Strudelkugel writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft's Chairman Bill Gates is going to call for a revision of capitalism. He will argue that the economics that drive much of the world should use market forces to address the needs of poor countries, which he feels are currently being ignored. 'We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well,' Mr. Gates will say in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 'Key to Mr. Gates's plan will be for businesses to dedicate their top people to poor issues — an approach he feels is more powerful than traditional corporate donations and volunteer work. Governments should set policies and disburse funds to create financial incentives for businesses to improve the lives of the poor, he plans to say. Mr. Gates's argument for the potential profitability of serving the poor is certain to raise skepticism, and some people may point out that poverty became a priority for Mr. Gates only after he'd earned billions building up Microsoft. But Mr. Gates is emphatic that he's not calling for a fundamental change in how capitalism works.'"
Is Microsoft going to stop looking for new ways to be anticompetitive, now?
Wikileaks, no DNS
That would do more than anything to eliminate world poverty as everyone in the world has equal access to the world's wealth of information from pharmaceutical recipes to operating systems.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
The imposition of markets is at the very root of so many of the ills facing impoverished countries. I can't help but see the same tortured reasoning that I see in Homer Simpson's classic explanation that beer is "the cause of -- and solution to -- all of life's problems."
The Fight for Student Power on Campus: www.forstudentpower.org.
"Kinder" as "nicer" or "kinder" as in "garten"?
Ron Jeremy calls for porn with less spooge.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
a kinder version of Microsoft Office!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
To Mr. Gates:
Helping poor people sounds like a great idea. There are lots of "poor" (compared to you) people that need help... me for example. Could you shoot me five or six, maybe seven million bucks? Thanks bro!
stuff |
"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people let us continue to rip off poorer people,' Mr. Gates will say in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 'Key to Mr. Gates's plan will be for businesses to dedicate their top people to locking in the poor an approach he feels is more powerful when tied into traditional corporate donations and volunteer work. Governments should set policies and disburse funds to create financial incentives so that businesses can profit when they "improve" the lives of the poor, rather than giving money to the poor, he plans to say "The poor would just waste it on non-essentials like food and medicine.". Mr. Gates's argument for the potential profitability of serving the poor via government pork-barrelling and corporate tie-ins is certain to raise skepticism, and some people may point out that tapping the poverty-ridden became a priority for Mr. Gates only after he'd earned billions building up Microsoft. But Mr. Gates is emphatic that he's not calling for a fundamental change in how capitalism works - as long as he continues to get his.'"
Note to Bill, its been tried at least twice in the past 100 years and they were called communism and socialism. The only change for the poor in those systems is there is more of them.
To paraphrase Churchill: "It has been said that capitalism is the worst form of economy except all the others that have been tried."
The World Bank and IMF loan these countries money, which is then paid out to contractors specified by the WTO. These contractors then give a piece to local officials and do nothing. Where you now have a 3rd world country with a 4 Billion dollar loan at 30% with nothing to show for it. Which means that they borrow another 4 Billion to actually do the work they paid for the first time, and the cycle continues. Unless Bill Gates controls the world bank, he's going to have to find another hobby. You can't save the poor on this planet. The rich own them.
Didn't Bill make his fortune by being opportunistic and ruthless in business?
Hardly the sort of person I would have thought as credible when it comes to argue for something like this
Thats funny. I remember how Gates screwed over everyone he could when he was in charge of Microsoft. Can anyone imagine Steve Ballmer giving a shit about helping poor people? Microsoft don't even care about individual customers if they're not a corporate entity.
Easy for him to say.
He's got the money for it.
Hey, Bill! Put up or shut up!
There is a distinction between how Microsoft behaves and the kind of capitalism Gates is criticising.
Nobody in the tech sector ever starved to death or died of disease through lack of access to medicine because of what Microsoft did.
It annoyed me when Gates got his honourary knighthood for services to industry and not for philanthropy, because, like it or not, the guy has an impact on extreme poverty.
The one specific area we should be criticising is the use of financial aid as a way to avoid monopoly prosecution, but even then, it's a bit of a stretch to connect that to the kind of unkind capitalism he's referring to.
(this Anonymous Coward is a long term mac user, and thus indirectly benefited from Microsoft's use of financial aid to avoid monopoly prosecution)
Jack Thompson calls for a 'Less Confrontational Litigation'.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Mohammed Yukos has been evangelizing a number of ideas about entrepreneurial businesses whose primary motive is helping their communities, and who only make enough "profit" to build their businesses and help more people. If this means that Gates is buying into those ideas, with Gates's resources, and the commitment to philanthropy he's always shown (outside his day job as the Satanic Overlord of the information economy, obviously), this might lead to good things.
Doesn't mean I'll be buying a copy of Windows any time soon, of course; and I'd still like to see the DOJ actually investigate some of Microsoft's shenanigans, but give the man credit where it's due.
Bill may be saying something useful here. I'll leave that commentary to others.
But Bill clearly feels breath on his neck. He's trying to change history -- his. I bristle when I read about this petty, win at all costs no matter what it does to others fellow being described as a philanthropist.
I'm sure he doesn't have an agenda to make the world more profitable for Microsoft, anymore. Just 20 years ago, when he was already absurdly rich, absolutely any large sum he gave to any charity would have been ALL about making more money. But he still has an agenda, and I suspect that any time he spends thinking about others is still primarily about profiting his self, just now in an intangible way: He's greasing-up his camel, because he plans to cram it through the eye of a needle.
The reason that capitalism hasn't worked as well in places like this is because they were F'd over for so long by imperial states. And their own warring states. So what's really needed is a dramatic cut in militarism/statism.
It's unfortunate that he's overlooked how much better off the poor are under capitalism and voluntary trade than any other system.
Is Microsoft contemplating committing seppuku then?
as TFS states, people are critical of Gates because he has waited until he has all this money to speak up. I'm going to take an optimistic approach and say that perhaps he has waited until he has money to push this because nobody listens to poor people. If your neighbor came out and said the same thing that Gates is I doubt it would be on /. Gates is in a position where he can actually effect changes. I say if he wants to help the poor, more power to him as long as he doesn't turn a blind eye to Microsoft.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
My take is more like: poverty became an issue for BillG only after he got married to Melinda. I'm sure that is the primary reason for calling their charity group the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Let's revise capitalism! Doesn't sound too tough... I reckon we can get it done by Tuesday!
"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."
Capitalism suffers from the same problem as Communism and Anarchy. In order for it to work, people need to not be jerks.
The problem with solving poverty is that it costs money; investing money in things that will give no return is bad business. Unless we are willing to sacrifice things will never change. Even then it will be hard because there will not be an overnight change. It will take time and energy.
We CAN make poverty history. We just have to be willing to pay the price and suffer for no other reason than it is the right thing to do.
It's a scam to insert themselves into the revenue stream and suck at the public teat.
This is a bit off-topic, but I'm going to reproduce something my mother (who is a teacher) wrote in respect to the similarly-phrased venture philanthropy plans in education. Sorry that it is long, but since educationally venture philanthropy is very much part of the Gates' foundations agenda, it's relevant in entirety. I did the html formatting, but the content is my Mom's:
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Deleted
Is that for pre-school?
old geek
Okay, maybe I'm a bit confused here but let me see if I got this straight: With capitalism, when it works for you, you get money. When it doesn't work for you, you get poor. Now Bill Gates wants to revise capitalism so that the poor get money too.
Isn't that what, with gross generalization, the basis for socialism was?
We had a story about it just a little while ago "MS ties charity to the use of Windows". I have absolutly no doubt that Bill Gates would LOVE to help the poor, with "free" MS software.
No not because he is an evil self-serving asshole. Lets be brutally honest here, MS software is the best in the world, and Bill Gates is the living proof of it. If MS software isn't the best in the world, why does everyone use it making Bill Gates one of the richest man on earth?
Because lets undestand this very clearly, compared to all the other very rich men on earth, Bill Gates got that way by basically selling a SINGLE product, later expanding that to a massive TWO. (Okay not exactly, but compare this to other giant companies like IBM, HP or the japanese giants and MS product catalog seems awfully thin).
I think their is something very subtle corrupt about PRIVATE donations, when even a Morning Musume sketch knows it, you have to wonder why any sane society allows it.
In a sketch some childeren have an argument, one is rich, the others aren't. Rich kid complains to parents, parents talk to the schoolteacher and threathen to cut their donations.
A more classic example is religious charity, you can have our cash, but you got to listen to our sermon and if your religion ain't right, well we might not even give you anything at all.
I think charity should firmly be in the hands of a goverment, they are not the best but at least they can be voted out. If I want to donate a million dollars I shouldn't really be able to attach any restrictions to it. If you allow that you essentially allow the rich to dictate the live of the poor. Schools only get Bill Gates money if the schools only windows, can this even be called charity anymore? What next, schools that don't expell kids who pirate MS windows will get no funding?
No, I think Bill Gates is the last person I want in control of society, not just because he is ammoral business man, but because he also had that amorallity work for him all his life. Do you want a human being telling the poor how to life who has never ever been poor? Who with his monthly income condems countless others to poverty.
This has to do with the concept of average income. If the average income is 1000 dollars and one person make 10.000 then 9 people earn nothing at all
If he is truly that worried about society, the answer is simple, PAY MORE TAXES. MS has made it an art to find way to dodge paying taxes over its gigantic earnings. But that offcourse won't happen, wether tax money is wasted or not is not the issue, Bill Gates has little to say on how taxes are spend, why it might even go to the NSA on projects to improve Linux. Schools could decide themselves what software to use. The end of the world!
There are some fans of Bill Gates who point out his charity work, but frankly for a man that is that rich, it is pathetic and a lot of it can be traced back to ways of forcing the use of windows.
Also there is this to consider, if I make 1000 dollars and donate 100, that is a huge amount. If I make a million dollars and donate 100.000. The amount is far greater but the impact on me is far smaller. If I have billions, then I could donate 95% of my wealth and still life the life of the filthy rich. Gates don't donate 95% of his wealth, not even 10 percent. Important thing to consider.
More controll by business over our society, yeah thanks DO NOT WANT!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
When I skim down the list of the world's billionaires, the ones that stand out when it comes to philanthropy tend to be the ones that made their money in software. Phillip Knight (of Nike) has given a lot to the University of Oregon, where he started out, but that's all I see from a first glance. I wonder if software folks have a different take on poverty than the rest of the super-wealthy?
Jeffrey sachs a famous american economist who was for a time special advisor to UN secretary general Kofi Annan wrote a book published in 2005 titled "The end of poverty" where he details just such a revision. see http://www.amazon.com/End-Poverty-Jeffrey-Sachs/dp/0141018666/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1201185744&sr=11-1
this is not as ironic or impossible as it sounds at first sight, Sachs is not a dreamer, what he wants to achieve is not suppressing all of poverty, but to suppress life threatening poverty. To do this he proposes to help the poor countries get back on the development ladder by using slight modifications to the market forces. once they get on the development ladder he argues, extreme poverty should disappear pretty fast (his proposed time frame is 20 years )
Even capitalism fails when unfair monopolistic practices such as those used by convicted monopolist Microsoft artificially keeps prices high.
Kinder capitalism would require getting rid of lunatics like Ballmer who even bullies his kids into not using an competitors product.
Freedom, equality and above all choice are required, Microsoft denies you much of that.
His statements would have more credibility if he dedicated Microsoft to cease illegal, anti-competitive behavior. You know, a kinder, gentler capitalism.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
So does that mean Bill will embrace Free Software on public institutions of poor countries to save cost and dependence from corporations which don't necessarily have their best interests at hand?
Fundamentally, there is no difference between what Grameen bank does in Bangladesh and what the sup prime mortgage industry in US does, sell to poor. The key difference is that of intent, Grameen is genuinely interested in helping the poor, but the moneylenders in US are trying to make money. Note that Grameen is not in for charity, but not in for money either. I guess this is what Bill Gates was referring to, when he said "Kinder Capitalism".
I don't think we should discriminate based on who said it, but what was being said. All of us can see the irony here, but how many of us are willing to see the point? I guess this is a good turn of events, A rich businessman focusing on (helping) the poor. This is like a strong statement of intent, and I sincerely hope to see some form of action plan from Microsoft towards it( well, I know this is not gonna happen , but still...). Somebody, please take the lead.
http://monkeynesianeconomics.blogspot.com/
He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto
Having been there myself several times last year (it's not too far from where I live), I wouldn't really call Soweto a failure of capitalism. It arose primarily under the old apartheid system as a collection of around 30 "black townships" (roughly = "black ghettos"), and the system for the blacks was basically an oppressive fascist police state, while for the whites, at best socialist (e.g. major industries like telecomms, electricity, television broadcasting, steel etc. were nationalised and quite tightly controlled). The Group Areas Act of old also forced certain races to live in certain areas, and other apartheid regulations specifically DID NOT ALLOW much freedom of trade or other commercial activity within black areas like Soweto - the blacks weren't really allowed to just, say, up and build a mall, noone was. That's not capitalism. That was just 14 or 15 years ago, basically.
Now, the current government is still a 'socialist' government - when the old government fell in 1994, the new one implemented a variety of "reforms" such as minimum wage and various welfare grants and "free electricity and water for all" programs, all of which did not exist before, that are certainly far more, um, typically associated with socialism than capitalism. On the other hand they reduced the level of nationalisation of businesses, privating or semi-privatising a number of major industries for example (some of those are disasters but for complete other reasons not relevant to this topic - also not failures of capitalism though). Nonetheless the current government can best be described as "centrist", pushing things neither too far to the right nor left - it is, loosely speaking, a 'free market system for most markets but with some socialist characteristics and a bit of crony capitalism' (not unlike the US), but has only been so for 14 odd years. For Soweto, many of the zoning and movement regulations have been lifted, which means that people and companies are now more free to invest and build etc. in Soweto, and anyone, including blacks are free to start, own, run and trade in any businesses. In spite of the relative poverty, with an estimated population between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000 people (who as a result of the old zoning regs used to have to travel miles to Joburg to buy various stuff), Soweto has a combined estimated annual retail buying power of about 4 billion Rand (roughly US$500million), and this IS currently attracting a lot of investment and development, particularly by the major black 'business elite' that has risen since 1994 --- there is currently loads of development going on - new malls are springing up, office parks are going up, gyms, even hotels and basic broadband infrastructure etc. are being built in Soweto.
So I wouldn't really call this a failure either - it's just the beginning, after all, just 14 years into a semi-capitalist system with mostly poor and poorly educated people, it's starting to turn into a veritable growing metropolis / city in its own right (albeit a dangerous crime-ridden one). Of course it could be going a lot better, but I don't think it can rightfully be called a "failure of capitalism". More like, new-born capitalism is starting to help fix the wreck of a socialist police state.
It should be noted that Soweto is NOT considered one of the "poorer" township areas. It's definitely poor, but compared to most other 'black townships', comparatively wealthy (e.g. almost all houses are brick - small and rundown, but brick, many roads are tarred etc., many streets have lighting and painted lines and there are proper police stations and hospitals and electricity and phone infrastructure - unlike the real poor, 'hardcore' townships like Umlazi and Alexandra which are really thousands of little shacks.)
The only problem with capitalism is that monopolies (hi, Bill!) distort Adam Smith's free market.
... food aid clobbers the only useful sector of third world economies, and agricultural tariffs prevent them from getting any realistic prices for what's left. The third world is left with no way to better themselves. They end up dependent on handouts from rich countries.
As for aiding the poor
And my fav current topic, the patronizing smugdiots who want to send food (which destroys their only chance at self-sufficiency and export income) to the third world instead of OLPC laptops (which saves them money compared to physical distribution of outdated textbooks in foreign languages). Or want to shove Windows on more expensive less capable laptops at them to lock them into a foreign monopoly instead of free source from which they can learn.
Hell of a way to keep 'em down on the non-farm. See what you can do about that, Bill.
Infuriate left and right
Does no one else realize how much money he has given away? I'm not saying that his company's practices are right by any means, but don't act like he simply makes boatloads of cash and then hordes it all. He has many mutli-billion dollar donations under his belt, and while you may say "but he has so much to spare", it's his money. If he wanted, he could keep it. That's what's great about America, you can do what you want with your money.
So no, I'm not saying that MS has the greatest practices in the world in regards to monopoly, and their software mostly sucks, but at the same point don't act like Bill is an evil money-hording pirate.
:(){
Damned right. If Bill Gates really gives a shit about the poor, he should be using his own money, not telling everybody else what to do or how to do it. And if he is serious about revising "capitalism", then he should first work on getting some capitalism in place. What we've got now isn't capitalism. It's just welfare/warfare statism that allows just enough private enterprise to keep the tax base from collapsing.
If you want to help the poor, get rid of the priests and the politicians. The politicians keep people poor, and the priests sucker the poor into accepting their poverty.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Gates, and humanity, would be better served if he acted like the real "Robber Baron" of American history.
The great robber barons - Carnegie, Rockefeller, and really, a lot more, all invested rather heavily in some basic infrastructure that continues to improve the USA to this day. All of the great robber barons ploughed their vast fortunes into libraries, universities, hospitals and other enterprises and essentially created, ironically, all of today's "liberal" institutions. While its admirable that he pours a lot of money in fighting HIV in Africa, if he actually built universities, vocational schools, or even just invested in existing ones, ultimately, the world would be much better served. Do you want humanity to genuinely improve? Good. Go set your school of choice up with an endowment so that they can buy a new supercomputer every couple of years.
While you are it, maybe these billionaires ought to do what Henry Ford did and pay their workers wages far above what everyone else was getting paid at the time. You know, maybe create a real middle class again!
This is my sig.
"Kinder Capitalism" is "you can have my teddy bear for ten lollipops". The kind of dealing that takes place in a Kindergarten.
How do you make Capitalism kinder, when one of the fundamental instruments of capitalism, the corporation has the status of a natural person. Not only that, but when the required behaviour of the corporation i.e. to act in the shareholders best interests is taken into account, creates a psychotic entity who will stop at nothing to achieve its primary objective.
Corporations today willingly break the law if it makes financial sense, and if they can profit more than fines imposed. If individuals acted like this we would be thrown in jail, but corporations cannot be because they are not really natural people.
So in all honestly, how do you create a kinder capitalism while the corporation still exists?
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Am I the only that was instantly reminded of Kinder Surprise eggs when reading the headline?
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Why are mega-corporations so evil?
Why do they want to take over the education system?
I do not understand how a degeneration of the education system stands to benefit these corporations.
Can anybody please explain?
Thanks very much.
Its funny that at some point in the future we will HAVE to BELIEVE in this "initiative" by abusive corporate giants. or else. Im thinking in the kids, which will most certainly not now of the obscure methods used to earn those billions, and of the obscure mechanisms which really are behind those "top level" capitalist minds "aiding" the poor.
A one billion dollar idea for mrs gates: to help the poor in 3rd world nations, just spend 10% of your cash to give away solar panels in YOUR own country, so you dont have to predate 3rd world countries to get energy/petroleum/fresh meat, liver transplants, reproductive rigths, or forgiveness for your capitalism atrocities.
Well you know, that 3rd world countries are already under first world countries control, so resistance is futile.
But seriously, fusking yankees, recicle and switch to renewable energies, its your excess of consumerism that is killing third world countries.
And its your capitalism/consumism example what drives the local capitalists to predate and destroy/abuse.
Having super top level capitalist executives working to solve local goverment problems, wont really help.
(which goverment that respects itself will allow microsoft to put its dirty hand on local politics... im sure many already, but under cellular pressure over relatives).
Withdrawing impreialism pressure, and helping develop renewable resources/energies will, certainly help.
Practically everything Microsoft does contains some aspect that is adversarial toward customers. That extremely adversarial corporate culture was designed by Bill Gates.
Is Bill Gates a new man now? Has Bill Gates somehow become a person who cares about other people? If he has, why doesn't he stop Microsoft from releasing sloppy, unfinished software? Is the "new" Bill Gates like the "new" Richard Nixon?
Everything I've seen indicates that Bill Gates is a poor writer. Who wrote his speech then?
It seems to me that Bill Gates is one of the most disliked people in the world. Is his new interest in other people a public relations attempt? Is he using public relations to try to get approval, like Nancy Reagan's interest in drug abuse prevention or Pamela Anderson's interested in vegetarian eating and breast size?
Public relations is just a normal purchase for people who have a lot of money, and in the case of most of them, completely cynical.
That is what BG means by a kinder gentler Capitalism, kinder and gentler to MSFT.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Just because you have a ton of money does not mean that you are an economics expert.
Capitalism is how we allocate finite resources. It is the best we got.
When government interferes, you can get shortages and other bad economic blowback effects. Especially when decisions are made with political rationales.
Capitalism doesn't preclude charity or setting up a business to help train and employee poor people, etc. You can start a company that isn't completely focused on making as much money as humanly possible. That's allowed.
But if you try to change the overall system, I can only foresee bad things happening.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Capitalism in the "West", in practice and not necessarily in any theory, works because of 500 years of preaching against envy.
When people point at something of the Rich and Wealthy and say "I want that too!" then things are working. When they point and say "He can't have that!" then you not only rob the person who had it, but also deter anybody else from aspiration.
You can observe this time and again in the "poor" countries (sorry, all anecdotal). You try and provide aid and it is stolen by local distributors or police or army or government. You improve your land, grow better crops, and those not willing to do "non-traditional" farming come after you. Why work when you can't keep what you have?
Even in America, the Mayflower colonists tried socialism for a year and starved. The next year everybody got their own garden and they prospered. Yes, there was native help by then, but no incentive to prosper. In the Soviet Union, the private gardens far outproduced the state communes, at least in crops per acre. Again, personal interest.
So, once a person feels safe in person, and in property rights, then that person will be interested in increasing and improving his property. So if you want capitalism to work, you must also instill the idea of honesty in government, and not stealing your neighbors' goods.
Mr. Gates seems to think that capitalism doesn't work. It works for *him* quite well. Microsoft doesn't work well in places that don't respect his property, such as SE Asia. It isn't the capitalism that doesn't work there, it's the lack of respect for property, an *honesty* problem.
This from the guy who was surprised by the Internet? Sorry. I'll look for my transformative suggestions from someone with a slightly higher visionary IQ.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Then clearly there's no reason to ever, ever, ever attempt to try again.
Was communism a successful economic model, at least in terms of it's implementation in the Soviet Union or China? Certainly not. Was it an attempt at addressing some very serious problems with economic disparity and problems in the previous economic systems? To some degree, yes. Do serious flaws exist in the way the world economy distributes wealth and resources around the world? Unless you're utterly blinded by doctrinaire views of capitalism, absolutely.
he's mad i tell you maaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddddd!!!!! is there no level of society where microsoft shouldn't be?? He wants the poor to also support Microsoft with this crazy talk??? Microsoft for the people? I think not.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.
/"Microsoft"/, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TimeLETSystems
--- start quotation ---
TimeLETSystems is a mutual credit and exchange systems which combines elements
from both LETSystems and a time bank systems.
To better understand how TimeLETSystems work we need to explain how LETSystems and time banks differ.
=== Time banks ===
In a time bank system time is used as the unit of credit and is based
on the principle that "one hour equals one hour".
This means that everyone get one hour credit for one hour of service.
While this principle might provide a feeling of fairness
it also remove the basis for the principle of supply and demand
and therefor goods is rarely traded in a time bank system.
=== LETSystems ===
The credit in a LETSystems is normally loosely based on a national currency.
The prices in the system is determent by supply, demand and negotiation.
This allow both goods and service to be exchanged via a LETSystem.
The problem with basing the system on an existing currency
is that a currency is a very abstract notion which
value depend on how much the uses trust it, a problem
which also effects currency based LETSystems.
=== TimeLETSystems ===
A TimeLETSystem is LETSystem which use time as the measurement of credit
which is much more concrete than a currency.
In a TimeLETSystem prices is still determent by supply, demand and negotiation
which allow both service and goods to be exchanges.
The price for a service will typical be somewhere between the time the seller
use and the time the buyer saves.
--- end qoutation ---
With an alternative currency like this it is actually possible to unite the free market with social security.
There is a country with 'Kinder Capitalism', it is called Canada. Just ask to join it, yanks.
All of these "do good" plans while honestly made, continually avoid the ultimate problem, regardless of whether capitalism, socialism or something else runs the markets.
The available supply of water and agriculturally farmable land limits the number of people that can live on the earth. You can argue about how many people it can support, but with a doubling rate of less than 50-100 years I can guarantee the thinkers, prognosticators and leaders of the world will find out fairly soon.
There will be calls for the "fat" countries to share their food. The EU will try to take food from the UK, and deliver it elsewhere, like the Sahara, where no one in their right mind would live anyway, except that by that time they have had subsidies and their population doubled or quadrupled again pushing people into less than subsistence, because they become literal beggars of the EU.
History has tended to show of mass migrations of people when starvation occurs, with invasion, war and revolution being the words used to describe such things.
Given Bills ostensible abilities at computing and access to lots of processor cycles, I would think such a smart man (?) could do something other than talk about what is just an artifact of what the whole earth is heading toward.
But then again, that is real tough, with lots of hard work, and I think Bill Gates is into jetting around the world on a permanent vacation now. Time will tell.
The problem is that nobody has come up with a good answer to the "how" question so far.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Most of what is criticised is nothing more than actions which yield short-term gains at the expense of long term profitability. The long term is ignored because the level of change in modern society tempts people into believing their current actions have no predictable consequences. But they do. Helping the poor, or taking care of your workers (as Henry Ford did) has a long-term payoff.
Is this like The Decider running on "compassionate conservatism" during his first presidential campaign?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Hah, I read that as "kinder," like for kids.
Key to Mr. Gates's plan will be for businesses to dedicate their top people to poor issues
You mean, like google.org? Of course, not to discount the Gates Foundation, but what he's proposing seems closer to the Google.org model than the Gates Foundation model.The notion that the rich are not concerned enough for the poor is laughable. It is laughable because the rich are very concerned for the poor. Just not in the poor's interest. This is false political spectrum allowed in the US - conservatives or Republicans or whatever speak of a free market (whatever the phrase "free market" means - I don't see how a market selling potatos in the USSR for rubles is any difference than a market in the US selling potatos for dollars - the difference was always in production, not exchange). Speak of how opening restrictions on capitalism will help everyone, or some even say it doesn't matter, because people do not have an obligation to one another. Then there is liberalism and the Democrats - the problem is the rich do not care enough about the poor.
Both are nonsense and are really two sides of the same coin. Just take a look at China today to see the purpose of the poor. With a 20% growth rate per year it is quite open what happens - the "market" heats up, profits go down as workers make and demand more (even in repressive labor conditions reminiscent of the early days of the western industrialization). So what happens? The state, controlled by Deng-Xiaoping-following "capitalist roaders" as they used to be called, begins laying off workers, and enclosure and the like happens in the farms out west, creating a flood of new workers, lower wages and higher profits. This has been happening in rural Mexico because of NAFTA (and other similar recent trade agreements), which is why the US's neighbor to the south for so many centuries suddenly has so many undocumented types from rural Mexico flooding over the border.
The point is is that unlike in other economic systems - slave systems, the former eastern socialist systems, feudal systems - poverty is a necessity for capitalism. If it did not exist, workers would demand all of the surplus they create at their companies, and their would be no dividend checks going out. A practical truth, the framework (but not the details) of which were spelled out by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Say, Malthus and all of the founders of economics. But this framework was tossed in the garbage can in the late 19th century, and Smith, Ricardo and all of the early economists realization of value being created by labor was tossed in the garbage and some new nonsense was brought in. Without unemployment, poverty, longer and longer hours and that sort of thing, Gates would have no fortune. His fortune is on the backs of his overworked, often H1B'd staff, but the poor and unemployed are an essential component and necessity to keep those profits. This view is one which is rarely expressed nowadays, yet, usually the less it is heard of, the more true it is.
When everyone criticizes Bill Gates for whatever reason, while he's donating money. WHO CARES?! He's donating money, stop bitching about what he's done in the past. It's not drug money, its not illegally obtained cash, its profit. However he obtained it, screwing others over, whatever, is pointless to rant about. Sure, I feel for his victims, but sorry, you got screwed, perhaps you should have done something differently. Even so, I'm not going to argue for or against Bill Gates for whatever he's done, I don't care if you know about Company X that got screwed over for reason Y.
The point is, stop bitching about things like "He's only donating because he's rich" or "He made the donee use MS software in exchange". Donations are gifts, they aren't mandatory if you're rich or poor. Either way, these organizations are receiving these gifts and thats all that really matters. You don't have to praise him for it, nobody is asking you to do that, but you shouldn't bitch about it either. Just be thankful these organizations have more money than they did before (assuming these organizations are worthwhile).
And seriously, why is it such a big deal that in exchange for a donation, he is asking an organization to use their software (I'm assuming he is donating that as well, or donations > cost to switch to MS software)? It is, in a sense, paying someone to use your software. It speaks a little bit for your software but in the end, the have (arguably) useable software and more money than they had before. Do these organizations complain about things like this? Certainly not as much as slashdotters apparently. In the end, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth".
....The World Council of Foxes has submitted a petition that they be given oversight of all henhouses.
To see that things have gotten so bad in the world that all I see here is cynicism and trolling. Yes, it is true a lot of us do not like Microsoft, for whatever reason (I find myself ambivalent but there you go). Yes Bill is worth billions. No, we won't change the world overnight, but for fucks sake, what has he got to gain from this? One of the most rich men in the world, he could quite easily say 'fuck it' put his feet up and do NOTHING - I don't think guilt is the real issue here. The fact that he is saying something, not to mention the amount of money his and his wifes' foundation has given away over the years (billions of dollars) surely accounts for something. If he has been clever enough to create the leviathan that is Microsoft, he might, just might, have some influence that could help us all change the shithole we are currently living in to something with some hope. But for fuck's sake lets not shoot the guy down in flames for it until we can prove he is in it to feather his own nest After almost 9 years on /. I'm getting pretty fucking sick of the attitudes round here - too many fucking smart arses and not enough people willing to think about anything more than how much free software they deserve or how they'll never pay for music because its not worth it* . but I feel pretty strongly about this. (* seriously - someone on here today valued it at 4 cents a track. If it is that bad, donate your ears to someone who could use them buddy). Bunch of moaning fucking ingrates. Set mod to troll.
It's amazing how people can talk about this problem and ignore the elephant in the room. Saying poor countries need our kindness is like asking a bully to give a poor child a quarter but not telling him to stop beating the crap out of him. International corporations and NGO's are actively destroying third-word countries' ability to govern themselves and operate in their public's best interest. They don't need your bleeding hearts, they don't need the help of our businesses. They need vastly improved economic protection, which will directly translate to higher prices for basic items such as clothing in the richer countries. Of course we can't have that, so we say it's all their fault and come up with initiatives like this one... over and over again.
Guys like you are why anarchism remains a utopian system: you hear "no leaders" and think I mean "no laws". If I want to talk about lawlessness, I will speak of either lawlessness or anomie. When I talk about anarchy, I mean "no leaders", not "no laws". Please get a clue; it's time we humans evolved. Playing "follow the leader" worked when we were little better than apes that could stand erect, but being willing to obey now is likely to get us all killed.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The Soviet Union had communism, not socialism. There was the word "socialist" in the name of the USSR, but to call it socialist on that basis is like saying the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was a democracy. Saying that communism has never been implemented is a lame attempt to disown the excesses of the Soviet Union.
The ideal Marxist state, however, has never been implemented. Though the Soviet Union was founded in the spirit of Marx's work, it was by no means the kind of state that Marx thought would necessarily appear. Marx's worker's state required an industrialized economy to arise (since this foster development of class consciousness among the proletariat), and there's no way you can fairly say that Russia was an industrial economy in 1917.
None of this is to endorse Marx's theories or the desirability of a Marxist state, merely to point out that one of his key stipulations didn't actually obtain in Russia at the time of the revolution.
In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
He's just advocating that $640 ought to be enough for anybody,...
When private industry cooperates with government for the "benefit of the people", the name we normally use is facism, not "kinder capitalism".
This close relationship between industry and government may "make the trains run on time", but may also screw the people, without any oversight.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Bill probably means by that that everybody will get crappy, pseudo-chocolate eggs, enclosing even crappier plastic pseudo-toys.
Stéphane "Alias" Gallay
Now, where did I put this witty quote?..
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world, founded in 2000 and doubled in size by Warren Buffett in 2006. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and, in the United States, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation has an endowment of US$37.6 billion as of July 11, 2007.
If Bill wants to shoot his moyth off about capitalism and poverty I think he's earned the right. Everytime you buy a M$ product you can be pretty sure that a small chunk of the profits will end up helping the 3rd world - didn't you guys figure that out yet?
"He Who Dares Wins"
I think Bill's logic regarding this "capitalism for the masses" thing goes something like this: 1) Linux and Linux-based software are Microsoft's fastest-growing competitors; 2) most future Linux users will not be Unix-savvy geeks, but mostly people who don't fully understand all advantages of Linux; 3) the main reason these people will chose Linux is because it's free; 4) Windows is not; 5) The fewer poor people there are, the bigger will be the potential future customer base for Windows.
What makes Mr. Gates think that NGOs and international bodies WANT a bunch of demanding, hyperactive bourgeois barging into their nice little rackets and telling them how to do their phoney-baloney jobs?
International aid is a morass of neopaternalism and pseudogenerosity, and disingenuous bromides aren't worth paying attention to. It's a way to assuage guilt, not to improve outcomes.
What will improve outcomes? Smashing tariffs and subsidies, so that poor nations can climb the ladder the west did a century ago. Working conditions in Chicago were no better in the late 1800s than they are in Cambodia now, children were dodging bobbins and wearing sabots until workers were wealthy and secure enough to demand change (and frankly, to demand the removal of children from the workforce to strengthen labor's position). But poor dark people in other countries don't vote, ADM and Cargill and their welfare farmers do. Jose Bove votes and blocks traffic in order to starve Kenyans. It all goes together. And if it's not tariffs and subsidies, the Euros can drop those and keep GMO bans, in order to tsk-tsk Americans.
Cynic? Moi?
The world has been throwing money into poor countries, mostly in Africa, for years. We have NOTHING to show for it. Money is not the answer. It's no different than giving a five-spot to a homeless drunk on the street. It will be used to buy another drink.
Instead of giving money to corrupt governments and organizations, we need to give money to businesses, charities, and other private organizations to help build infrastructure in these countries. We need also to help stabilize these countries so businesses will feel safe going into them and helping. If we cannot get stable leadership within, all all efforts are futile. We've been trying to band-aid Africa for longer than I've been alive and what's been tried hasn't worked. It's time to come up with something new...or forget it all and leave it alone.
True that now that Bill is separating himself out from MS, he has less influence, but you cannot suddenly isolate responsibility from him just like that. Besides, how much of his new-found generousity is "in kind", favouring one company's products?
Although, in order to keep people's eye on the ball, my comment was somewhat simplistic, yours is even more so. Legal fictions are not reality, and Bill still has a lot of influence.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Okay, seriously, enough with Bill Gates equal Microsoft crap.
Yes, he helped lead the company to it's high points. However, he hasn't been CEO for many years. Now, he's only one of the board members - he's not even directly involved anymore.
Seriously, Bill has the Gates Foundation - probably one of THE largest charity organizations IN THE WORLD. Still a heartless capitalist?
The basic reality is that all capitalism is based upon the exploitation of someone. We work jobs and are paid, but if the value of our work to our employer didn't exceed (substatially in most cases) the amount we are compensated for that work by our employer, we wouldn't have jobs. Thus while exploitive by nature, jobs are good because they enable workers to meet their daily survival challenges. The other extreme is when we decouple the value of our work from our compensation. When you see the doctor getting paid the same as the janitor, you'll see more people opting to be janitors than doctors because of the personal investments required to be proficient at each.
The answer for the poor are CHOICES... The "experiment" of this country is that armed with FREEDOM people can address and solve their own problems. It's easy to pick on Bill Gates for pursuing a self-serving agenda in relationship to his charity. It's more productive to engage and encourage others to engage the problems he addresses so that the victims of poverty will have CHOICES.
In my opinion, this is also the solution for the school systems in this country. We should allow public and private schools to compete for students and to be held accountable for their performance via the choices of the parents of those students.
In honesty, some people armed with freedom will make poor choices. (Because alongside the freedom to make good choices and to reap the benefits of doing so comes the freedom to make poor choices and to suffer the consequences of doing so...) However in an environment with freedom (ie: the freedom to choose) and the proper attitude, all poverty is temporary.
Thus if the new capitalism provides for competition that extends FREEDOM to the impoverished (not necessarily democracy- but the freedom to select between multiple options) they will never truly be trapped because they will always have other options.
AC
I have read that the "goal" of economy is to eliminate scarcity. Capitalism is just a method that spurs COMPETITION to give an advantage to groups who do the best to serve the goal of the economy. This takes advantage of the inherent nature of humans to be greedy, because a successful capitalist will become wealthy (as Gates has demonstrated).
If Gates is so satisfied with his wealth, power to him. I would say that, "Bill Gates has won capitalism" (and eliminated scarcity for himself).
The challenge of empowering "poor" societies (his proposition) is harder, though. It isn't capitalist. It is welfare and socialist and genuinely good (if done right). If he wants to eliminate scarcity for groups where resources are currently *very scarce*, he should looks towards sustainable production methods. Is energy a concern? Develop wind/solar/hydro power for the "poor". Is food a concern? Better agricultural techniques can be employed in the "poorer" areas of the world. Is the top concern health and medical related? Better medical facilities, doctors, and drugs should be setup in the poor countries. Is housing an issue? Construct strong and beautiful structures that the locals would be proud to move into.
As for Gates' proposition of "a kinder capitalism", I think he is looking at it wrong. I think he would have Microsoft be a monetary vehicle that produces a product for $x and sells it for $x+y dollars to "rich" peoples. This gives the "rich" societies a product they need (software) and leaves $y for socialism and welfare and genuine good for the "poor" world.
And to be honest, if Gates' efforts result in prosperity in the third world at the cost of $y (the Microsoft tax) which is paid willingly by the first world... then he will have succeeded in ways that pure "charity" organizations like UNICEF, the Red Cross, and the United Way never could.
Then again, it is Bill Gates and he is notorious for being a businessman first, so any "charity" from him should be taken with a grain of sand.
And if you'd care to delve into more of my ideas on the topic, they are buried throughout a novel that I've written which is available here. Granted, the novel is mostly about a group of citizens who aren't happy with things in a post-Capitalist world, but there is a lot of description about how such a world might be structured (and free feel to grep "Gates" in the text to see what I think about *that*).
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Bill Gates says he's frustrated by capitalism's shortcomings, but what he's identifying as capitalism isn't. There isn't a single truly capitalism economy anywhere on the planet. As for the notion that businesses should be directed to immolate themselves to benefit the collective... well, his so-called "creative capitalism" is altruism by force. Socialism. That's what he's advocating. I'm so fucking angry right now, I could spit. Ayn Rand, call your office. Friends of Global Progress, here we come.
Bill Gates, go to hell. And take the guilt trip you're trying to spread right along with you.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Current banking system is the root of all shortcomings in the economy.
Where's Ayn Rand in Bill's book collection? Capitalism only works because it incentivizes competence. Lack of competence will always be met, over the long term, with financial ruin. Instead of condemning capitalism, we ought to be encouraging more nations to adopt a stricter version of it, including the US. After all, how many trillions in charity and other aid have gone to African nations over the past couple decades and in what state are they? Charity is wonderful but should never be put before sound business.
Why do I get the feeling I was just added to some government watch list?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
...this is simply his way of trying to improve Microsoft's performance.
(In my experience, taking senior management out of large firms and giving them projects 'elsewhere' gives the people below them a reasonable chance to actually get shit done, instead of ginning up data for tomorrow's 64-slide powerpoint presentation.)
-Styopa
Calls to change the way people earn, spend and buy flow easily from the mouths of those who are done becoming very wealthy, and those who know they have little chance of becoming very wealthy.
Those calls to change are firmly quashed by those who are not done becoming very wealthy, and those who don't know they have little chance of becoming very wealthy.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
You have touched on the key to a kinder capitalism. I know you didn't say it, but the whole, "responsibility to the shareholders at any cost" idea is part of the problem. The biggest problem is that people and the courts have determined that "responsible to the shareholders" means "make as much money as possible", and means only that. There is no reason that it could not mean "will not use your money to rape the poor", or "will not use your money to commit crimes". Of course, perhaps, the law needs to be changed so that we don't have an entity with the rights of a human, yet no morals what so ever.
Right off the bat, if we made the fines against corporations large enough to cause serious losses, CEOs would be required under the current system to stop committing crimes.
So, let me get this straight, Bill Gates who used some of the most cut-throat tactics ever seen in business, now wants his competitors to 'play nice'. Sorry Bill, we all hope you're broke in 5 years. However, on a more general scale, corporations and gov't are merely quid-pro-quo whorehouses sold to the highest bidder. When the gov't needs illegal wire-taps, Verizon and Sprint allow them secret rooms to listen in on calls. When Haliburton (and KBR) need more revenue, the gov't hands out no-bid contracts. When the gov't dislikes literature, Amazon and Wikipedia ban the book "America Deceived". We The People had our gov't sold out from beneath us.
Final link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism'
So he's capitalizing on children now? How is this new?
This from a man who ruthlessly cheated DOS original copyright holder to make millions,
and stole the GUI from Apple to make more,
and sabotaged OS/2 Warp to promote NT,
and strong-armed PC makers and sellers to pay for Windows for every PC they shipped whether it shipped with Windows or not,
and provided an amnesty bin to its own employees to make them ditch iPods for Zune in turd color,
and sicced Windows Me to an unsuspecting public making them scarred for life,
and charges money to make its operating system secure when it was delibrately made insecure to earn more money,
and spun a Lamborghini into sand on its first trip ,
and thinks mutiple platforms mean Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows Vista,
and stole, robbed, cheated technologies like OLE and memory management from other companies.
And now he calls for a "kinder" capitalism???
Its like Cheney saying tomorrow: "Iam impeaching myself for my lies that led to 3800 deaths of fine soldiers and am putting myself on stand."
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
The robber barons were always self-serving. Difference is that in the days of yore they were in fear of God, or even society sanctions, so they invested without any self interest. Nowadays Gates will invest in education -- if you buy his software.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
P.J. O'Rourke explored global economics in his book Eat The Rich. What he discovered in his travels is that it doesn't matter what fundamental system a nation chooses to run on (capitalism, socialism, etc.) there are two basic ideas which must be in place in order for people to thrive economically: 1)rule of law. 2)personal property rights. Why does socialism work in Sweden, but not in Cuba? Why does rampant capitalism work in Hong Kong, but not in Albania? The differences are rule of law and private property rights. These are the building blocks of any successful economic system. "Market forces" are meaningless in and of themselves.
Proverbs 21:19
The aspects of capitalism that most serve wealthier people do so largely because they impose burdens on poorer people, a cost wealthier people are largely willing to let other people pay for their benefit. The regulation of so-called "free" markets is largely driven by exactly the kind of mercantile forces Adam Smith warned against allowing to dictate policy, with the same kind of negative effects to the general interest that he warned that allowing that would have. You can have an economic system that serves the interest of poorer people (i.e., everyone but the super-rich) better than the current system does, and it might even fairly be called a form of "capitalism" (it might, for instance, be a reasonable extension of Adam Smith's ideas, at least moreso than our current system is), but it certainly won't rely on the aspects of status quo capitalism that serve the wealthiest now, it will, of necessity, need to mitigate or outright eliminate those aspects.
It strikes me that Free and Open Source software is an excellent example of a system that benefits businesses, the wealthy, and the poor simultaneously. The list of businesses benefiting from such software is long and well known, the techies of the first world benefit, and the third world gets a supply of high quality software that is comparatively easy to modify for local needs, with local talent. It costs the first world next to nothing to supply the software, and it gets in return the modifications and improvements that end up being made.
Software isn't a terribly representative commodity, as few products have such a high ratio of fixed costs to per unit costs; but software is a very important part of the economy and is only going to grow. F/OSS seems like the elephant in the room when Gates is calling for a kinder capitalism. Software is among the lowest hanging fruit for such an initiative.
And if you take grandparent to the extreme, you shouldn't be able to keep any money you earn at all. After all, who am I to decide you should make me a waterboiler just because I give you 17? That's tyranny that is. Grandparent really needs to grow up. If you earn money, it's yours. And the entire point of having money is that you can spend it to make other people do what you want. It's called trade, and without it we would still be living in the stoneage.
Governments should set policies and disburse funds to create financial incentives for businesses to improve the lives of the poor, he plans to say.
He doesn't care about poverty, he just looking for a way to get a slice of the taxpayer pie.
The basic reality is that all capitalism is based upon the exploitation of someone
I don't think that word means what you think it means. In the economic sense, exploitation is defined as the making of a profit from the labor of others without providing a just return. In a broad sense, I suppose you could construe exploitation to mean using the resources (time, labor, etc.) of others for selfish ends. Either way, though, there is the notion that the individual being "exploited" is not getting a just return.
Thus while exploitive by nature, jobs are good because they enable workers to meet their daily survival challenges
I do not think that jobs (employment) are exploitive by nature. If you are forced to work in a job for less compensation than you would freely agree to, that is something other than employment. If, as you succinctly point out, your job enables you to meet your daily survival challenges, can you logically claim that you are being exploited? I suppose it hinges upon the word "just." I submit, however, that in reality you wouldn't work for an unjust reward...your level of effort will rise or fall in accord with the value you place upon your compensation, thereby rendering whatever you are receiving in exchange as "just" from your perspective.
We should allow public and private schools to compete for students and to be held accountable for their performance via the choices of the parents of those students.
I am almost there with you! I think that all schools should have to compete for funding. The tragedy that is our public school system (at least in Michigan) is allowed to continue because the schools are paid for with property taxes. There is a decoupling of the funding source from the activity from the results. If the school funding component of property taxes were removed (meaning property owners keep their money) and the cost of operating the school was charged to parents and guardians of the students who attend, there would be a massive sea change in the quality of schools provided. But, what then of the poor with limited funds to send their children to school? I don't know. Perhaps charitable organizations funded by the donations from property owners who are no longer paying for everyone's children to attend school? May not work, but it's a thought.
Personally, I think cutting the population is the best cure for poverty... Those people in death locked poverty obviously live outside the ability to acquire resources.. Thus if there were less people to claim already available resources there wouldn't be lack of supply.. Seriously I think population control and a real overhaul of our values is needed above and beyond helping people who just keep using resources beyond their means and expecting someone to step in and save them... Same goes for someone who pays a dollar on their credit card bill, then turns around and spends 5$.. The poor will never cease until we keep humans from over producing and alienate our outdated morality.. SAVE THE F'ING PLANET, EDUCATE THE MASSES, but don't f'ing give hand outs!!!!!
I think Bill's idea of using Vistbucks as a new world currency just might have some merit.
Vistabucks currency will be backed by copies of Microsoft Software. At any time you can go to the bank and cash in your Vista Bucks for software. Poor people in the 3rd world will be given free copies of Vista Operating system. They can either choose to use the software or else turn it in for Vistabucks.
In this way the federal reserve's role in regulating the money supply is replaced by Microsoft's distribution of new operating systems.
In Bill we trust.
It's an amusing article. In my mind it shows how someone like Gates is an underdeveloped adolescent who's just learning about other aspects of the human experience. I'm amazed at how someone can be so singly focused on something, like success in the business world, that they miss basic aspects of humanity.
This should be seen for what it is. Bill Gates is just now learning that being the wealthiest person in the world isn't all that fulfilling. There are other more important things than money. Then he arrogantly feels that he's made some "new" ground-breaking discovery and has to share it with the world.
I say, "What took you so long Bill?" I thought you might not ever get it! Funny thing is... if he'd finished his education at Harvard, he probably would've grown more as a person and things like this wouldn't be such a revelation to him. Higher education creates a more well rounded person in general.
Smart, insightful people are rarely motivated by money except for meeting their most important needs (Bill Gates is not in this category). Otherwise, in my humble experience, they're more driven by trying to do "right" and "making a difference" in the world, even if it's only in small part.
Gates makes money off the money he's investing in charity. Without the hatred that came with his last scammy enterprise, without real competition, and without having to invent anything, however cruddy.
--
make install -not war
Bill Gates talking about a kinder capitalism is kinda like a leper giving a facial. It doesn't really work!
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
You want to fix things. Stop these crazy compensation package.
That extra 90 million would support 900 employees a year. That 90 million would go back into the economy.
There is no justification for these compensation rates- if directors held the line on salaries for CEO's like they did for employees, CEO's would be making about 2 million. CEO pay has increased at orders of magnitude over the inflation rate for almost 20 years.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I suppose that makes Bill Gates a modern uber-"Robin Hood." He has no problem squeezing corporations, government, and K through higher ed out of billions so that he can give it away.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Oh I give up, how the fuck do you think you got to where you are. Just give your money away and retire.
Not sure what market he is in, now, possibly philanthropy, but it seems more likely to me that he is upset that he can't control it and wants everybody else to obey some new rule he's made up so he can get back to doing what he knows how to do -- lie cheat and steal his way to absolute control.
Infuriate left and right
Capitalism is structurally about growth and increased profit. The idea of derailing funds from making more profit towards "human" causes is incompatible with the capitalist system.
People think that coz they see capitalism as something ruled by individual will, as if it was a human being making ethical choices. Its more like a machine, systematically steering the social organization towards its goal: profit.
Basically, the CEO that starts making decisions that would derive from that goal will either plunge its company into bankruptcy or will be replaced by its shareholders when they see other companies in the given market have better performance.
that way they would focus less on money, money, money and more on working well.
When XYZ makes a record quarter and then announces layoffs, that is just wrong, and the main reason is the shareholders above screaming for more dividend$. With no dividends they can just speculate on the share price and not have control over the companies. They are all uncaring vultures.
L.
I was at Control Data Corporation when Our Glorious Leader (Bill Norris) announced that our new mission statement (though this was well before it became trendy to have mission statements) was "Profitably solving society's problems." It made us all proud to be associated with that company.
(For the younger people reading this who may not remember CDC, Control Data Corporation used to be a viable computer company, but then it split the attention of its execs between running a business, which they knew how to do, and solving society's problems, which apparently they did not. Then it died.)
Let's put a cap on personal wealth at $10 million. Anybody with more has to turn the rest in to the government for redistribution. Yeah, that sounds good.
Nothing like having the richest man in world, especially a guy that got wealthy through means not strictly ethical, telling everyone that they now need to take care of the poor. What the hell was he doing for the poor in 1985 when he was busy putting encrypted code into Windows 3.0 to prevent Dr Dos from working?
He's a hypocritical bastard like a lot of the extremely wealthy. They got there's so now it's time to tell everybody else what to do to even the playing field.
Jeez. The nerve of the guy. The destroyer of competition. The eater of companies. The exploiter of poorer nations.
Do you really think he has seen the light?
A billionaire businessman wants the government to take more money from other people and give it to him so he can help the poor.
Not at all. OTHER PEOPLE SWEATED for it.
And that's true of ALL management. Try running Microsoft without any programmers, no janitors, no mailroom staff, no box shifters. Then you'll sweat.
Nothing this huge(world economics/politics/history) is this simple but still I think a large reason their are those wealthier people and those poorer people is due to to "western" capitalism*.
*or whatever you want to call how the capitalist 1st world resource and labor exploits the 3rd world.
It's overpopulation that provides a cheap work force to mine, grow, and process the resources you speak of. Without the poor masses, competing for subsistence, who will do all the grunt work? Only through mass poverty and starvation can we become truly prosperous.
at least in german - and beeing german native speaker, the first thing that came to my mind when reading the headline was Bill Gates calling for a capitalism of children (Kinderkapitalismus) or capitalistic children. To me a rather interesting association. Of course completely wrong... How dare I think something like that...
'Key to Mr. Gates's plan will be for businesses to dedicate their top people to poor issues'
Me often hearem that and thinkem much Bwana no understandum native.
I've heard Former U.N. leader Kofi Annan speak live and one of his favorite stories involves ear muffs. Growing up in Ghana he spent his first year of college in Minnesota freezing his ears off because he wasn't going to wear anything as stupid as earmuffs. Finally, he broke down and understood that the locals know best how to adapt to their own conditions. Most important lesson of his life.
Hopefully, Gates understands this or the top-down management he picks to shoulder the White Man's Burden will be leading the charge back to the 19th century.
Wouldn't hurt Gates to read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" either to help him get a grasp on how the third world "went wrong".
No, we could all just do our part and then omg everything is getting done without a bunch of underpaid workers struggling to survive.. F the existence of cheap workforce which further perpetuates THIS hostile existence.. The fact that your egocentric world view harms others for prosperity is sad!!
All you need to do to help reduce poverty is to make opportunity available to people who traditionally do not have such opportunities. This also serves as a filter to people who are content to benefit from the efforts of others while contributing nothing in return. What is the old cliche, "A hand up, not a hand out". Provide education and vocational training to people who are already working hard to support their families but are stuck in low earning fields with little room to improve their situation. Sure you could give them $10,000 cash. And when it was gone they would have some stuff and maybe have reduced their debt temporarily. If you give them enough resources to support their family while training for a better paying career, the impact will be much greater than a simple payment. The difference is that it would have to be earned by hard work and an actual desire to improve.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
This will be the most secure and bug free Capitalism ever released! How can you not see that?
In my opinion Bill Gates is doing this for a couple of reasons that are NOT altruistic. He's after more profit, just going about getting it in another way. It is similar to the way George Bush has been pushing things. For Microsoft it might work, but it is for nothing more than just making money.
He's intent on building up the third world country's economies so that the people can buy his product. If he makes headway into these economies then his product becomes the defacto standard and tho he may not be part of running Microsoft he's still the major beneficiary of their success. So, to have all the 3rd world countries owe to him through the use of his software he's able to exert more control which embeds his product. As well, it allows him to manipulate their politics more. In the EU he looses because they were entrenched in their own laws about business for generations and he can do little to change them. But in developing countries he can help them create laws and business practices that benefit him and his ability to make money, such as making laws about being a monopoly non-existent.
The important thing for him is to not be ruled a monopoly, to get his product installed and to make him the entrenched defacto standard. He'd much rather see this than to have the inexpensive or free software take hold in those countries. It is important to him to not be a second choice to free solid products such as Linux and Open Office.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Dude, you should take a chill pill too, instead of shilling for the rich. You ask: What does Bill have to gain for it - he could put up his feet and do nothing. What Bill stands to gain now is his legacy. The ranting you complain about is backed up with decades of abuse, and attempts to fuck over all manner of entrepreneurs, competitors, governments and individuals that continues to this day. He doesn't want to be remembered as the head snake of one of the most evil and abusive corporations to exist. He doesn't pay a fucking penny himself, he's got more than enough to live off, and there's wonderful tax breaks to be had with charitable donations. Not to mention deflecting attention from ongoing criminality and evil by his baby, Microsoft. Your other comment about what harm is he doing ? He's perpetuating the "forgiveness" myth, that those people who you deride for getting fucked over by his behaviour are not deserving of protection or sympathy or assistance, because, you know, Bill Saw The Light, so it's all okay now. Also, if the organisations receiving his grant money don't actually fucking HELP anyone long term, then YES, the ranters are justified in their anger.
As for looking gift horses in the mouth, what would you say to a nice crack-laced bag of candy for your 2-year old? it's just someone donating candy, right? What do you have to complain about?
You got more candy than you had before, and more money left in your pocket. No harm done, right ?
Things aren't as black-and-white as you pretend, and slashdotters aren't a collective personality either.
Oh, and less you forget, it IS illegally obtained cash, as evidenced by the CRIMINAL conviction of Microsoft, master-in-chief at the helm, his Wonderful Giving Self, Lord William Gates.
He should have looked towards a kinder capitalism before he diverted a significant portion of the computer industry's profits into his control, and stiifled the computer innovation of a generation.
Capitalism 2.0? Capitalism Rebooted?
Nah.
White Man's Burden.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If market forces work like they are supposed to according to free-market-groupies, the poor are already getting all the service they want. If you give them more than they can buy, that isn't market forces, that's charity.
If you ever want to know how lopsided and ad-hock capitalism is, this bozo is its biggest success, and he doesn't even know how it fucking works!
Edith Keeler Must Die
Communism and Anarchy would only work if people were not jerks - you're right about that. Capitalism works because it's based upon the assumption that people will be jerks. The point of a market economy is to try to make it so that even selfish jerks are forced into helping other people. Without government intervention, the best way to make a ton of money is to do your damndest to help your fellow man by building a company that produces desired goods at dirt cheap prices.
The key problem with capitalism is that the government does interfere with the markets - you get big corporations (aka microsoft) pressuring the government to give them special breaks and abilities. Government subsidies are NOT a part of capitalism - they run counter to the nature of free markets.
The idea that capitalism encourages greed is akin to saying that having fire departments encourages people to start fires. People will be greedy no matter what social system they live in - captialism is simply designed to alleviate that condition as much as possible.
My blog
> When everyone criticizes Bill Gates for whatever reason, while he's donating money. WHO CARES?! He's donating money, stop bitching about what he's done in the past. It's not drug money, its not illegally obtained cash, its profit.
A) Some of us care about more than money.
B) Monopoly abuse isn't legal, so the cash wasn't acquired legally.
Sad, really. Flash a $ in front of someone's eyes and they lose any sense of justice they might have had. Just so you know, you can't buy forgiveness. At least, not from everyone.
If he wants my praise, he should do good things. I'd give him more credit for working with his own two hands to help another than I will for giving away millions. But I care about the person, not their wallet.
The middling is that Gates is proposing that businesses change their business models to add products and services that primarily benefit the poor. Fine if they can do it well, not fine if they can't do it well or the business is not appropriate to making things for poor people.
The bad is that Gates is proposing that the government provide money and incentives to encourage companies to do these things.
The ugly is the unstated, the implementation details. Government force and threats to targetted companies to make them create specific products. The creation of a new bureaucracy to hand out the largess, and make and enforce new rules. The corruption as officials solicit bribes from companies so that a new product line will be classified as benefitting the poor.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
What we need is "Capitalism with a human face".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Sorry, had to say it.
How do we harness the fruits of capitalism for the betterment of the unfortunate?
Here's a "creative capitalism" approach I ran across and kind of like, for the entrepreneurial and startup-employee types-- the stocktithe .
If you're starting a new company, why not donate 10% of your company's founding stock to a charity that tries to solve or mitigate global hunger and poverty problems?
Then you, and the company's employees, are working not just for your own wealth or success, but also to increase piece of wealth that has been dedicated to others, up-front.
Others who help you out along the way, whether employees or customers, can also enjoy taking part in contributing to your mission of not just earning a buck, but earning a buck for someone less fortunate.
Unlike corporate charity programs where "1%/2%/3%/10% of your purchase goes to charity", the customer doesn't feel like they're overpaying and would be better off donating the difference themselves to their own charity of choice. It's economically more efficient.
The price for them doesn't change, but the revenue and profit does help the company's stock price, and thus helps the charity and its beneficiaries since they own 10% of the founding stock.
Some of the awareness issues raised by Bill Gates's Harvard address, (starting work after college "with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world" and "What can I (concretely) do?") now become of interest to the corporate entity. If they (and the charity) neglect them, then the motivational value of the stock tithe decreases, but if they attend to them, employee motivation can be greater than experienced in a regular company.
Make your next company a stock tithe. Or tell me why it's a lousy idea.
Cheers,
Greg Weiss
slashdotgreg at gregweiss.com
P.S. I think the stock tithe concept, to some extent, fits into the hope Gates was looking for in his talk a year ago:
"We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism - if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. We also can press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.
If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world." --Bill Gates, Harvard address 2007
Billionaire Bill: "We need a new, kinder Capitalism."
Rich Man: [looks concerned] "He's talking like a socialist."
Billionaire Bill: "I am not calling for a fundamental change in how capitalism works."
Rich Man: [visibly relieved] "Whew! Business as usual."
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Minor spelling flame, just so people can get their Googles headed in the right direction. "Yukos" is the defunct Russian oil company stolen by Putin.
And yes Gates and Yunus have been doing the rounds of the surf'n'turf hi tech conferences lately.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
So Gates thinks the Free Market (tm) solves everything. Big surprise. It is the dominant worldview of our culture.
And it's wrong.
Think about what this really says. It says that the Free Market is omnipotent, omnipresent and perfect. It says that the Free Market always does the right thing, always maximizes benefit for individuals and for society, always works better than any other possible mechanism.
In other words, the market is God
This is at the heart of the current tension in the alliance between market conservatives and religious conservatives. The religious conservatives are figuring out just how diametrically opposed market conservatism is to their core beliefs.
This concept of market as God pairs nicely with our other Big Lies:
If you examine the messages being put out by ALL political parties you will find that they tap into one or more of these themes. We've been shaped to think this way over decades, starting with the Goldwater campaign.
It's time to think something different, like that we actually can have hope, that we don't have to fear each other, that we need to honestly confront the racial issues in our society and that our government exists to come together and make decisions for the common good.
Is that he seems to be willing to put his money where his mouth is in the form of massive donations to his foundation.
There seems to be this idea here that if you've earned lots of money, you don't have any room to talk, but I'll ask you this: Had he not, would it change anything? I mean suppose Gates had never earned anything more than a reasonable salary at MS. Suppose he had never kept any stock or anything like that. Where would have that money gone? To the third world? No, not at all.
I would argue that it can be quite noble to earn a lot of money if you then put that money towards good ends. It isn't as though he was sucking the money out of the pockets of people living in abject poverty in the third world. Rather he was creating a massive industry in the first world, and is now trying to spread some of that wealth.
Remember folks: Economics isn't zero sum. When someone gets more money, that doesn't by necessity mean someone else gets less. It is quite possible to grow the economy and have everyone make more money, have more stuff.
Adam Smith was concerned with there not being enough "stuff" for everyone: the poor couldn't feed themselves because there was not enough food.
Distribution of wealth and production is the problem today, so if Gates really wants to help he should stop quoting Adam Smith and asking for charity from companies.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
I don't have a good feeling about this. Capitalism. Embrace... Extend... Extinguish.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I think that you have kind of a skewed view of things here. Gates IS donating money, lots of it, to trying to make things better, just not so much in the US. It is great that you think that America's problems are important, however he seems to think that Africa's problems are more important and wants to devote efforts and money there.
I think it is a little selfish and arrogant to say that his money should go to America just because he happens to be American. It is also missing the point of what he's talking about. His point seems to be that we should be putting more money in to poor countries, and that it will result in a net improvement for all.
Wow...I sort of agree.
I much prefer a government that taxes the wealthy and gives to the poor. Sure the poor won't hold on to the money, but it does promote churn in businesses. There is a larger middle class.
When governments give tax breaks, the rich hold on to more money and very little changes. It is hard to break into the rich club because the rich have the money. There is a small or possibly no middle class.
I hope this next election changes the way the country's economy goes...regardless of who gets into power. We've spent too much on others and need to help out at home.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Money shouldn't be necessary anymore. People should be valued on their contribution to society and their reputation.
-AC
Does that mean Bill is going to dismantle Microsoft? That would be kind to the computing world.
Just my $0.02 worth.
about this. Last time they sued the one trying to use Kinder-Something.
Hey Bill, it's cool and all you want to rescue your soul by giving money away after you became a billionaire by breaking every rule in the "kinder business" rule book, but now shut the fuck up will ya? If it weren't for your practices, you wouldn't be in this position to tell us these practices are bad. Don't be a leech of humanity first and then then people not to be a leech. We all remember your business practices, no matter how much you give away now.
Capitalism is a system based on exploitation. The capitalists' profit come from paying workers a fraction of what their labor is worth. The entire system is organized to transfer wealth from the bottom to the top. You cannot have great wealth without great poverty. The only way to end poverty (and racism and war) is through socialism--a system organized from the bottom up, where workers (those who produce *all* of society's wealth) democratically decide how to run society and distribute the goods we collectively create. And before anyone dredges up "communist" China or the USSR, understand this: neither of those countries are/were communist. They are capitalist, only it is the state itself that is the capitalist. A layer of privileged bureaucrats exploits the mass of workers in order to enrich themselves. They use the rherotic of socialism to keep the populace docile--just like politicians in the US use rhetoric of democracy for the same purpose. That doesn't mean we actually live in a democracy (far from it--if we did, then we'd have a single-payer healthcare system and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be over right now).
In some ways I agree with what Bill is doing. His idea is good, but instead of adding more government funds to this type of incentive, the money that our governments CURRENTLY spend on sending cash and food and other things that are misappropriated, fall into the wrong hands etc needs to be re-allocated to make a better impact. How much do we spend sending tankers of water rather than building wells?
What's the most effective way to really combat poverty? Building schools like the Central Asia Institute (http://www.ikat.org/) does for only around $12K per school, or helping developed world lenders (like me) support entrepreneurs who want to open or run their own businesses (help themselves) like Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/) does is the best way to combat real poverty. Education, jobs and drinking water is the best way. Educated young people are less likely to be recruited by extremists as well.
Sending truckloads of rice is a temporary bandaid that's not even guaranteed to get to the hands of the needy.
Hell, Kiva has more people in countries like USA and Canada who want to help, but Kiva is small and can't scale up fast enough to get to enough needy people to take advantage of all the interested donors/lenders. Government money that ends up in the hands of rebel groups could be better spent here. There is a business case to be made as well since Kiva for example is looking into passing interest back to the lenders.
Next steps can be to help bring medical skills and sustainable agriculture to a region - something that building schools can help solve.
Anyway, the current model of foreign aid is waaay broken. Fix the root of the problem like lack of education, rather than trying to fix a collapsing damn with your finger tip in the hole.
(This post is kind of all over the place, but philanthropy issues have recently become something of a passion, and I can't write prettily just now.)
Yes, after all 10 USD per capita ought to be enough for anybody.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
There, fixed that for you.
and inverse universe. What? Gates wants kinder, gentler capitalism? Cant that be like the wolf asking for its prey to exercise and make self beefier, juicer, and more succulent?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Not an exact comparison, but he personally ranks about 70 in the world's economies. Talk is cheap -- why doesn't he buy his own country and actually run the experiment?
Death: inevitable. What good, gadget fetishism?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
There's always a trend toward monopoly. That's what happened with Microsoft, and now there's no real market for desktop operating systems, browsers, or word processors. Unless we have some sort of referee system to break up monopolies as they formed, capitalism is doomed.
Fortunately, we've been able to do that pretty much everywhere but technology.
Everything else has been said already
In 1965, U.S. corporate taxes amounted to 4% of gross domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development which includes local, state, and federal income and capital-gains taxes in its calculation. By 2000, that figure had dropped to 2.5%.
House approves $30 billion in corporate tax breaks
Article promoting it on MSN.com without mentioning MSFT :
A corporate tax break that could benefit you
Microsoft Reduces Irish Corporate Tax Liability To Less Than 10%
WTO rules against US corporate tax breaks
The EU was set to implement retaliatory tariffs
Senate Approves Tech Corporate Tax Break
Ms use share options to reduce their tax bill by $5.5 billion
Microsft & Cisco pay $0 Federal Income Tax
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No.
By 'kinder', he clearly means that capitalism should consist of a chocolate shell of charity, surrounding a hard yellow egg of economics.
The Gates Foundation, which awards much of its money to help children, has benefited from a $2.1 billion stake in companies cited by the services that analyze corporate conduct because the companies have been accused of violating human rights, including the rights of children.
Since 2005, for example, the foundation held investments totaling $189 million in four large chocolate makers: $146 million in Archer Daniels Midland; $26 million in Nestle; $12 million in Cadbury Schweppes, the world's largest confectionary maker; and $5 million in Kraft Foods.
All four companies publicly support sustainable cocoa farming, responsible pesticide use and nonabusive labor practices. All participate in the International Cocoa Initiative to keep production environmentally safe and free of child labor.
Nonetheless, all four firms buy much of their cocoa from West Africa, where 70 percent of the world's cocoa is grown. A 2002 report by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture at the U.S. Agency for International Development said 284,000 children in West Africa, many younger than 14 years old, worked in the cocoa industry under hazardous conditions. They included 200,000 children in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer.
"Countless numbers of children have been trafficked to slave on Cote d'Ivoire's many cocoa plantations," according to a U.S. State Department report.
The U.S. Labor Department said: "Children working as forced labor on these farms describe being deceived, coerced and threatened by adult intermediaries and employers; working between 10-20 hours per day with few or no breaks under hazardous conditions; and being confined to locked rooms at night."
In 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund sued Nestle, Archer Daniels Midland and another chocolate producer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of three children from Mali who said they were taken from their homes and brought to Ivory Coast as slaves.
The lawsuit, filed for "thousands" of children who allegedly suffered the same fate, said the companies failed to use their power to control suppliers.
The companies denied any liability. The lawsuit is pending.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"What's this one, 'spring surprise'?"
"Ah - now, that's our speciality - covered with darkest creamy chocolate. When you pop it in your mouth steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through-both cheeks."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Norway and Sweden don't have anything close to socialism. It's correct that the extremist right in Norway is to the left of the Democrats in the US, but what you call socialism simply isn't. Scandinavian countries have something we in Norway call a social democracy, a far cry from a socialist country, where the exclusive ruling of a single party is an integrated part of the system.
Its Muhammad 'Yunus' , the 2006 Noble Peace Prize winning economist/entrepreneur from Bangladesh.
nothing more. He probably calls all the news agencies just before donating his millions of dollars.
Sell Vista Ultimate at $99.
Although odds are there still wont be many people actually wanting it anyway.
I have spoken'eth.
1) He never took home an outrageous salary like many of his CEO counterparts.
... For example ever look at the price list of say Oracle, IBM or many other vendors? Sun used to charge outrageous fees.
.. You are comparing MS with professional software. MS's professional software costs a lot too. I happen to have a 1990 catalogue for CP/M software (I keep these things to debunk people like you). 19 GBP (~$25?) for Locoscript word processor, 28 GBP for Masterfile databas; I leave you to adjust for subsequent inflation but it's about a factor of three here in UK.
... when all is said and done Microsoft and Bill Gates will not look like the villain that many like to portray
Funny he got so rich then. Actually, we weren't born yesterday - the salary of these guys is hardly relevant. Income != Salary. Most of the income of company owners is in profits taken and share values.
2) He built a company and from the get go gave each employee the chance to get options and shares.
What has the income of these qualified professional people got to do with "The Poor"
3) He built a market for third parties.
He did not build it, it arose. The policy of an open PC with open APIs was IBM's (to which MS was originally contracted). Not even IBM invented that approach anyway, it already existed with CP/M for example. MS has till now kicked any third party in the head if it became too much of a rival (eg Netscape, Novell, even IBM in the software field).
4) He brought down the price of software. Before Microsoft people were charging a fortune for software.
Oracle, IBM, Sun ?
Sorry, they've blown it. They are on record as law-breaking monopolists who lean on governments, contemptuously disregard the orders of the European Government, play dirty tricks that exploit their near monopoly, and brazenly corrupt the processes of the International Standards Organisation in their own favour. Just as a few examples.
So he listened to Muhammad Yunnis speak (or maybe read one of his books) and thought to himself, what a great idea. Then he figured that he would claim this idea as his own, sounds like business as usual.
Would you trust a person who has tried so hard to destroy the FOSS movement?
Mr. Gates' ideas sounds like using foxes to guard hen houses.
Sorry Bill, I don't trust you, yet.
Perhaps, when you publicly tell Steve Balmer to stop being such a thug, I will be more receptive to your ideas.
Which man do you respect more: The one who devotes a few of his hundreds of billions to charity or the one who devotes his whole life to charity?
If compassionate conservatism gave us the most interventionist and intrusive government in US history, what will kinder capitalism give us? Universally mandated poverty?
I want the old fashioned greedy capitalism in the same way I want the old fashioned cold hearted conservatism.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
You can't make change unless you have power. Power can be in the form of information, wealth or even objects.
Jesus had insight to God, and that gave him power over people (faithless).
Governments have Guns, and that gave them power over people (trustful).
Drug companies have Pills, and that gave them power over people (illness).
Societies have Conformity, and that gave them power over people (acceptance).
Capitalism has Profit, and that gave them power over people (greed).
Yukos? Don't you mean Yunus? I have Banker To The Poor on my pile of unread books at the moment.
(posting anonymously from work)
"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well."
I can't sell Windows to poor people at full retail - or even OEM - prices.
Like General Zod said in his 2008 Presidential campaign platform: "It is I who shall be your ruler. I shall empower you with wealth to give me as tribute."
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
This is about increasing the number of consumers.
Let the information flow.
Make browser that meet standards.
That IE have hurt the whole web and information flow. And all from shameful business practices.
Bill, correct that before doing charity!
How about Bill Gates and Microsoft start paying their fair share of taxes and stop taking corporate welfare? It's a well-known fact, for example, that Microsoft launders all of those copies of Windows through a Nevada shell corporation to avoid paying Washington state taxes. How many teachers could the state pay with the extra tax money, huh Mr Gates?
This article should have the title of this one.
http://gaia.world-television.com/wef/worldeconomicforum_annualmeeting2008/default.aspx?sn=24144&lang=en
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
'We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well,' Mr. Gates will say in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.'
It sounds like Billy Gates wants to keep his title as World's Richest Man for at least as long as he lives, by denying others the benefits of the same nice capitalistic system, the fruits of which he has so enjoyed. "Pull the ladder up. I'm aboard!"
"You're young, you're drunk, you're in bed, you have knives; shit happens." -- Angelina Jolie
anyone seen esr on slashdot recently?
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
for a multi-billionaire to call for....
not so easy for the rest of us.
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Then he would support free software for all the people of earth and free open access to much of the knowledge of humankind. He would recant his and his company's sniping against Linux and open source. He would see to it that licensing for little or no money was available for all of Microsoft's anti-competitive and especially technology blocking patents. Let's see what actions he takes on the basis of his appeal.
I would argue that there is no way that any worker can receive a "just" return for his work because no matter how much he or she gets paid for the labor, they can never get that time back. Besides that, their "wage" is usually dictated by market forces which are designed to devalue their labor insuring that they will probably not receive a just return. A programmer writes programs for a living. The company he works for sells his work for millions, they pay him tens of thousands. There is nothing very "just" about the equation simply because the individual has health care and can pay his or her mortgage. I would argue that he his exploited because of the gross lack of parity between worker and employer. Which is why I call it "exploitation". There are workers in Indonesia and China stitching our sneakers together right now for pennies a day. While it helps them survive to have employment, I would argue that their compensation and treatment is far from just. So much so, that if anyone in our labor market was subjected to such practices, they'd demonstrate and protest against the injustice of it all.
If, as you succinctly point out, your job enables you to meet your daily survival challenges, can you logically claim that you are being exploited? I suppose it hinges upon the word "just." I submit, however, that in reality you wouldn't work for an unjust reward...your level of effort will rise or fall in accord with the value you place upon your compensation, thereby rendering whatever you are receiving in exchange as "just" from your perspective.
I would argue that it is not what the job's value from your perspective that makes it just because you as the worker for the most part are not allowed to dictate that value. Instead, the negotiation for your salary usually begins with what your employer is willing to pay you, not what the job is actually worth. The level of parity between employer and employee are skewed based upon an artificial construction that firmly establishes the employer as a middle man between the work and the compensation for that work as secured from the customer. If the employer took a 50% share in exchange for the fact that they directly service the customer there would be more parity, but they own the work, they own the time, they own the product... each in its entirety. The worker derives compensation from a tiny fraction of the wealth generated by his labor.
It's really not that different from sharecropping... and sharecropping is very exploitive.
I am almost there with you! I think that all schools should have to compete for funding. The tragedy that is our public school system (at least in Michigan) is allowed to continue because the schools are paid for with property taxes.
I'm willing to extend the concept of INVESTMENT to our schools in that it seems proper for communities to invest in good school systems, however simply because a community agrees to invest in schools does not exempt the schools from being a good return on their investment. Adding CHOICE to the equation allows parents to decide the best educational venues for their INVESTMENT. Because funding and performance are decoupled in many cases, we see much of what we see today because school systems have little fear for the consequences of poor performance.
AC
Edward Jenner worked in the countryside and his clients where humble people like farmers and milk maids.
The motivation for his work was the high levels of mortality that smallpox inflicted on the population he treated in a daily basis, not the hope of making himself wealthy.
He was never moved by profit (which only came in the from of a government grant for more research, years later after his breakthrough) to say so is most disingineous.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Those people needing the food tomorrow should wait until a local farming industry develops (competing against the obscenely subsidized Western agricultural powerhouses).
Great idea of yours buddy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Churchill during the war had no qualms to use rationing (a socialist technique) instead of allowing the markets to fix problems of supply and demand.
Although communism was disastrous where it was tried ( Cambodia, Mao's China), socialism has a far better record in improving the living conditions of the population (Cuba, several parts of the Soviet Block) and certainly many governments have introduced Socialist measures to a general acceptance as necessary for a fair society (UK's NHS, Mexico's oil industry, education in pretty much every country, modern labour laws, etc).
In places where people lived in misery socialist measures helped to bring many of those people to a level that although was still poor, it was not miserable anymore (most of the Soviet block, Cuba).
If you start from a point where you have a wealthy middle class, then yes, maybe strong socialist measures may be counterproductive, but if you start from a poor state of development uncontrolled capitalism may be a recipe for disaster.
If you see a more equitable society as something negative you have a point. But you are failing to tell us how to stop all those CEOs getting millions for failures while workers salaries don't raise remotely as fast as those fat golden parachutes and CEO's and other privileged people's salaries, or how to punish abusers of the free markets with more than a mild slap in the wrist, or how to get rid of corrupt politicians that are intertwined with industrialists in many countries (Venezuela's support for Hugo Chavez'es socialist government steamed from being fed up with the abusive behavior of the capitalist elite).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They have no government at all. Soon they will be in the UN's security council and dictating the policies in the IMF....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Monopolies force their services in a public that is not defended by the institutions that should be doing so.
Services offered by a monopoly are not necessarily the best, but frequently are the only ones viable for the consumer (when people used to pay for a phone handset it wasn't because the handsets in offer were the best, but because you could not get nother handsets and in many cases your line rental contract forbade you from doing so. Check your Windows or Office EULA closely to realize how many prerogatives MS gives itself in regards to the software you are licensing).
To say that MS's software is the best just because they have a dominant position in the market is to disregard history, plain and simple.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... are transferring that poverty to China, India and other places.
It can't last, the capitalist system is no longer neatly contained to each country, but now the poor people making goods for the rich are no longer people in a different town in the same country.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... because exploitation has been exported elsewhere.
The time will come where there is no place to exploit, then the contradictions of exploiting labour for profit will become painfully obvious in ways we can't even imagine now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Management get paid better because they hold the balance of power, not because they are intrinsically more valuable, better or cleverer.
In the current economic turmoil (where all these "valuable" people wouldn't recognize a bad loan if it would hit them in the face) there are examples a dime a dozen of people royally screwing up whose talents are dubious, to say the least.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That everybody gives uncle Bill a clean bill of health. Billions buying a rewriting of history? What exactly do you want?
Industrialists, entrepreneurs rejoice: the end justifies the means. Be a person that uses dubious, illegal and immoral tactics to do business, as long as you make billions and then donate them to worthy causes, we shall sing your prises and sweep under the carpet all the pain and frustration caused during such minor commercial dealings.
Because, hey, if you are curing AIDS you become whiter than white, did never do any wrong, Sir Bill, we salute you.
And we would be ingrate if after you fucked us up , you become a saint and we dare as much as remind everybody how those billions were acquired.
When somebody leading a charitable foundation squandered moral standing in the business community he was supposed to work with, I fail to see why the people affected are at fault by pointing such monumental flaws and inconsistencies between the entrepreneur and the charitable man.
You may wish to dissociate one from each other, I fail to see how any reasonable person could possibly do that.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That is wrong in so many levels that I will not even try to reply to it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Because Sweden has not an irrational economical blockade lasting for almost 50 years?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... and give all for cancer research, it is all OK then?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.