Face-off: Is Gates Right On Creative Capitalism?

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told the corporate and governmental bigwigs in attendance that businesses should adopt a form of "creative capitalism" in which they seek to alleviate the problems in developing nations.

The notion is essentially this: coming up with drugs or water purification techniques for those nations may not be as profitable as catering to well-heeled retirees in Florida, but rewards will come nonetheless, in the form of recognition and, ultimately, a profit.

"Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in developing countries not because there's no demand, or even because money is lacking, but because we don't spend enough time studying the needs and requirements of that market," Gates said.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[EdwardEdwards]

For years Apple has been attaching itself to Bono for a mutual cool thing, and now Gates comes up with the same idea. He should have worked for fucking Xerox...

[wagadog]

Oh, come on. If dissing and undermining the most creative stuff going on in the technosphere -- web technologies all deployed on LINUX servers, BILL -- and making cheap copycat versions that cost far more money, dumbing down the programming population into point-and-grunt MSCE idiots, putting a huge DRM damper on the marketplace of ideas and trying to lock customers into Windows crap is his idea of creativity, he can bloody well go be creative somewhere else. And I don't mean Yerp. Maybe outer Mongolia. Sheesh.

[WilliePilgrim]

A step in the right direction. Let's hope they too abandon the old "tax dodge" model of being tax-exempt organizations and follow Google dot Org's rejection of tax exemption (none of these guys need it anyhow no matter how keenly it hurts their accountants deep inside)in order to directly stimulate business that create wealth AND solutions instead of merely delaying utter and abject poverty.

[godlessclif]

Gates is dead wrong. Capitalism doesn't create wealth, it only distributes it.

The distribution is unfair, because the monetary system is unfair.

[LastDaysCafe]

I don't know how many "evil lies" Bill Gates has told,if any - but Gate's public authority to analyze and make predictions is probably based,at least in the public's preception,on his work in creating a software empire virtually from scratch.Now compare the basis of Gate's authority and decision making to that of President Bush.The obvious differences is that Gates used his mind and his money to make a contribution to a technology that connects the world whereas Bush used the American tax-payer's money to instigate an illegal,murderous war in order to steal Iraq's oil!

[themodernleader]

The altruistic Bill Gates is a prophet to the downtroddened throughout the world. In the Country which endowed him with curiousity and competence, he achieved and made his mark.
Now that Country is desperate for novel and renown leadership. What does Bill Gates do? Turn his back on his own countrymen. He recognizes that he can not be a prophet in his own country as was said by a great prophet 2000 thousand years ago. But phrophecy is the wrong calling.
The true calling for Bill Gates, as well as other distinguished Americans, is DUTY. He has a responsibility to preserve and defend the American way of life as is written in the Constitution of the United states of America.
In a declining organization, the natural leaders lose their patriotism and sense of special responsibility owing to their exceptional position in the organization. And the organization flounders.

[Justinpassing]

Face-off: Is Gates Right On Creative Capitalism?
Since Gates will be the last one standing.....
I'd say the answer is NO.

[ibsteve2u]

Is that why T. Boone Pickens is attempting to corner the Ogallala reservoir's water?

So he can provide clean water to the citizens of Texas, just because of the altruistic nature of his heart?

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/02/01/water_texas/

http://redmooncafe.blogspot.com/2007/11/boone-pickens-and-ogallala-aquifer.html

[Troubledwawa]

http://gaia.world-television.com/wef/worldeconomicforum_annualmeeting2008/default.aspx?sn=24144&lang=en

There's the link to the speech by Bill Gates. It's about 37 minutes long and he gives detail on what Creative Capitalism is.

In short, Bill wants corporations to put some of their best minds on solving problems of the poor, while in return, they can get a better image from consumers that will help increase profits.

He used a sentence from Adam Smith that basically says (paraphrasing) - in addition to selfishness, humans have a side that wants to give and watch others benefit without any benefit to themselves. He gave a nice example of a company in India that made medicine for people in Africa for 40 cents a dose, after the WHO challenged them to make the medicine for under 50 cents, after determining what the African People could pay.

But when Bill started giving suggestions of companies giving "foreign aid, charitable gifts, and new products", along with "employee gifts" as compensation for the work, I had to start wondering why all this good work comes back to the tax payer. Which it does under current law.

Doesn't really sound like it's as from the heart as it could be. When the narrator asked Bill questions and on the first one, rename Corporate Capitalism as "Global Corporate Citizenry", that pretty much summed it up for me.

Bill, pay your taxes, K? And lets focus on this country, for a change.

[mmckinl]

No, Government has to be involved. Any corporations charter is to maximize profit, and poor people don't have hard currency.

Phizer won't be taking goats as payment anytime soon.