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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.'"
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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!!
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.
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 )
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!
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Well, Bill Gates is on the record (1995) for deriding other CEOs as having only "finite greed" and not being competitive enough by moving into new markets. Odd that he would call for "kinder capitalism."
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Wikipedia: Human Development Index
#2: Norway
#6: Sweden
#12: United States
Democratic socialist Scandinavian countries -- where people live in abject squalor and poverty due to the evil scurge of socialism...
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1) So he's the least well paid CEO? No. something must be wrong here. Are you insinuating that BG is laundering drigs money or something?
2) He kept an incredible amount of wealth for himself (see 1)
3) He's killed the market for third parties. Many companies have failed to get funding once MS announced they were making one too. Then never made it.
5) He's brought the price of software HUGELY up. Before MS, there was no economy of scale, so comparing enduser costs between the two completely different realms is ridiculous.
This created an incredible amount of wealth for his employees...
Which was taken from other parts of the economy and, in the case of anticompetetive practices, from other peoples employees.
He built a market for third parties.
On third parties you mean. Within the Microsoft sphere you can make exactly as much money as Microsoft lets you; get too popular and they cut off your airsupply. The lucky companies got bought, but most were simply killed off.
How about Apple?
Apple is hardly a posterboy for a competetive market either.
He brought down the price of software. Before Microsoft people were charging a fortune for software
Hardly. Software for similar class computers was often cheaper in those days; Amiga, Atari and other low end home computers had a thriving ecosystem of inexpensive software producers. Microsofts ride on IBM into the business world more likely extended higher prices for longer than they'd have survived without MS. And probably held back software development several years.
Oracle, IBM or many other vendors?
The computing industry is full of expensive crapware. Neither Apple, Sun, IBM or Oracle have a clean history. Nor are they poster boys for free market capitalism. Some seem to have learned a lesson, while some are hardly shining examples today, even compared with Microsoft (Apple, Oracle).
Microsoft and Bill Gates will not look like the villain that many like to portray.
Yes they will. While many others are as bad or worse, only Microsoft has had the sheer prevalence to hold back progress and damage the field of computing that much.
Mainly it's the flawed concept of intellectual monopoly law that's been the weapon in their hand, but the decision to use it against the free market as they have was theirs.