First, he leaves Microsoft to spend more time on philanthropy. Then, today, he gives a speech to World Economic Forum in which he urges executives and others to improve world healthcare and infrastructure, even when the capitalist market incentive is not in place to do so. He points out that while capitalism is good for the rich, it doesn’t do much for the poor. Watch the full video.
A story in DowJones MarketWatch reports:
“Gates said one of capitalism’s flaws is that ‘as people’s wealth rises, the financial incentive to serve them rises. As people’s wealth falls, the financial incentives to serve them fall .. until they reach zero.'”
Guess it’s almost funny that Gates is just now figuring this out (or just now admitting that he understand this). He patterned Microsoft’s business practices so thoroughly after the magnates of the Industrial Revolution era that Microsoft itself was indicted as a monopoly in 2000. Surely, as he was building his operating system monopoly and squashing young upstart software companies like Netscape by bundling features in Windows, it might have occurred to him that when economic power is held by too few entities, the lesser among us get squashed.
But, giving credit where it is due, this ultra powerful guy is now trying to right some of the world’s biggest wrongs. And if anyone has the clout to do so, Gates does. He is calling his idea “creative capitalism” which he says means using “market forces” to better address the needs of the poor. For the economically disadvantaged in the bottom third – that’s 2-6 billion people, he says, technology advances are less beneficial to them. That causes disparity to grow greater between the wealthy and the poor. He wants companies to tailor products and services toward the underprivileged even when the market incentive to do so isn’t strong. Maybe labeling his thoughts as “socialism” is too harsh, as Gates wants businesses to voluntarily serve these markets – not be forced to serve them through taxation.
