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Bill Gates Calls for a 'Kinder Capitalism'
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jan 24, 2008 09:19 AM
from the kindness-starts-at-home dept.
from the kindness-starts-at-home dept.
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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Great News... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People tend to group things illogically. Separate the two, because in reality they are separate.
Re:Great News... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:4, Insightful)
Some point in the last few years, Bill Gates seems to have figured out he's roughly into the last third of his life, looked in the mirror, and didn't see anything there. It's clear he's decided to do something about that, and good on him for it.
That being said, he's got a lot to explain as he touts his newfound (and very worthy) repudiation of hoarding. Kinder capitalism? Why don't you show us how it's done, Bill? If anyone's in a position to do it, you are. Show us.
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was not by design. That was because he could not control those markets. There should be no anti-virus market. Extra hardware is something he likes to sell himself. Games as well.
So what market has he build?
No. He raised the price of software. The software he is selling has mot become cheaper. The price has become higher.
Where all software indeed became cheaper, Windows is becoming more expensive. The fact that all software becomes cheaper is market driven. More computers, menas more people you can sell to, means lower prices.
That has nothing to do with Microsoft.
An interesting article about the PS pricing strategy [theregister.co.uk]
It is from 1999, but still acurate.
Indeed MS is not the vilain people try to portray it. It is much worse. From the first letter he send to talk about piracy to whatever the company he is doing now, he is trying to drown, not embrace, whatever anybody else is making.
Parent
Re:Great News... (Score:4, Funny)
I think there may be a bit of misunderstanding here. Gates is to give this speech in Davos, which is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland.
"Kinder" means "children" in German.
So it may just be that his "kinder capitalism" may be more along the lines of A Modest Proposal [wikipedia.org].
Parent
So is that... (Score:4, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
community response (Score:3, Funny)
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!
Reality Translation (Score:3, Insightful)
"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.'"
Intent--Alternate reality translation (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think we should discriminate based on who said it, but w
Really Bill? (Score:3, Insightful)
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."
Re:Really Bill? (Score:5, Insightful)
What capitalism can't be improved? Capitalism like in the US, in Russia, in Saudi Arabia, in Congo? What sort of improvements work or don't work and why? I think it is more important to ask and answer those sorts of questions than offer up a sweeping defense of capitalism.
I also suspect that most people would agree that public ownership of the means of production in some industries (fire department, basic scientific research, health care, etc..) may not be such a bad idea after all.
Parent
Re:Really Bill? (Score:5, Interesting)
#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...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
World Bank Loan Sharks (Score:3, Informative)
OK Bill (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like Gates is reading Yukos (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I can rationalize with Bill a bit.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Same problem, different name. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Not At All (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Venture Philanthropy (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [xkcd.com]:
I think I know what he wants (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
World's Billionares (Score:3, Interesting)
The end of poverty (Score:5, Informative)
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 )
Re:The end of poverty (Score:5, Interesting)
In short it reads more like an adverticing for himself and the UN system.
If your are interested in ending poverty I will suggest you read
The Future of Money by B.A. Lietaer
Parent
Moral credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes! (Score:3, Interesting)
Soweto (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A few other odds and ends that may or may not be interesting to some:
A small part of Soweto [google.com] in Google Maps. (Soweto's very big and sprawling; this section shows Chris-Hani Baragwanath Hospital in the bottom right - a huge state-run hospital, some sources claim it's the biggest hospital in the world, although that's a claim I'd say "[citation needed]" for myself). To the top left is a now decommissioned power plant, the two towers of which dominate a large area of the Soweto skyline (and now painted with mu
Try a real free market (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Gates should act like a real "Robber Baron" (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Kinder Capitalism, as in Kinder Surprise? (Score:4, Funny)
Longer time horizon is the cure (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
More gibberish (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:More gibberish (Score:4, Interesting)
This view is one which is rarely expressed nowadays,
I agree.
yet, usually the less it is heard of, the more true it is.
I disagree. Your post is mindless drivel based on a loose and ungrounded interpretation of world events. `Poverty' is a necessity for capitalism only in the sense that not everyone may posess the same amount of wealth. But if you compare the poverty level in a developed nation like the United States versus a developing nation like China, you'll see why you should be qualifying a lot of the statements you just made. I've been to China within the last ten years. I've seen what they call `poverty.' Think going outside, peeling bark off a tree, and boiling it for food. The beggars on the street here where I live in Texas make above minimum wage.
Parent
You know what's really annoying? (Score:4, Insightful)
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".
It angers me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
these days its the smaller gene- or bio-labs that come up with new ways to kill the most common threat to out bodies, not big pharma.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only types of infections that could wipe us all out aren't likely to be treatable with the sort of drugs that big pharma is interested in patenting - the anti-obesity, anti-cancer, antidepressant and other sorts of anti-whatever-social-disorder-is-trendy drugs.
It's likely to be a viral infection of the influenza type, for which the technology to create an effective vaccine already exists, and for which no lengthy clinical trials are needed.
There will always be a mark
Re:Bwaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
Classic examples are food aid which has all but killed the local farm industry in many African countries along with dumping unused clothing and shoes which has done the same to the local textile and shoe industries. We drive a local tradesman onto the street and make him forever dependant on foreign aid every time one of us gives a piece of clothing to one of those "collectors" which leave a leaflet and a bag every week.
While at it, Billy the Robber is as guilty of killing indiginous industries as anyone. He has made everything in his power to kill local competition everywhere he stepped. We live in a world where there is one or two indiginous word processing products left as final hold-outs in the losing battle against MSOffice. Navision has been doing the same to indiginous accounting packages and so on.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It has lots to do with, for instance, perversion of the markets by the protectionists of the developed world who subsidise their agrobusiness interests and thus artificially depress the market price for the very cash crops that would allow third world economies to sustain themselves.
It has a lot to do with the ultimate market Big Lie that is GATT - structured to allow parasitical 'service' companies from the developed na
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd settle for...a kinder version of Microsoft Office!
Tried it, name was Clippy, now residing in the Dumb Idea Retirement Home with Jar Jar Binks.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, it's kinda like Hitler calling for a kinder, gentler genocide. Ok, well not exactly, but this story was ripe to be Godwined.