Bill Gates Wants Capitalist Reform
Gates Calls for Reform in Capitalism in the United States and Abroad
Bill Gates introduces his concept of "creative capitalism" wherein businesses and corporations target innovations to help bridge the "wealth gap" between rich and poor.
Bill Gates is well known to many as the CEO of Microsoft Corporation and his name has become synonymous with technology. According to its 2007 Fourth Quarter Earnings release, Microsoft earned 51.1 billion dollars last year in revenue and Forbes Magazine has ranked Gates first in their annual list of richest people in the world the past twelve years running. But today, in a video interview released by The Wall Street Journal, the man behind one of the largest companies in the world speaks about the need for major change in capitalism.
A New Gates
The past few years have seen a change in Gates, as The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which he co-founded with his wife, has become the main focus in his professional life. In 2006 he announced plans to leave his day-to-day role at Microsoft in order to give his full-time attention to the foundation, whose goals are to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty globally, while improving education and making information access easier through technology here in the United States.
Still, many are curious about exactly what changes Gates is calling for, since he owes his vast fortune to capitalism. The speech he delivered today in Davos, Switzerland, where we spoke before the World Economic Forum, provides answers. “I like to call this new system creative capitalism—an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together… …doing work that eases the world's inequities,” Gates said, and went on to provide examples of companies that have marketed their products and services to the needy of different countries and have profited financially while also providing vitally needed vaccines and other medical aid.
Creative Capitalism In Action
Gates has pledged to spend more time speaking to corporate leaders throughout the world and encouraging them to use the innovative thinkers and problem-solvers in their ranks to drive down the cost of their innovations, making them affordable to the world’s poorer citizens. He mentioned President Bush’s signing of a new law last year entitling drug companies that create new treatments for diseases like TB or malaria to receive priority review on one of their other drugs, in effect rewarding corporate philanthropy with market advantage. He also spoke about the popular RED campaign and how it has raised over $50 million dollars to combat AIDS and other diseases in Africa by channeling part of the purchase price of premium goods towards providing medicine and treatment for patients.
It has yet to be seen whether Gates’ efforts will pay off and critics have already started countering his arguments. One of them, NYU professor William Easterly, said in an article published in the LA Times earlier this year, “Africans are and will be escaping poverty the same way everybody else did: through the efforts of resourceful entrepreneurs , democratic reformers and ordinary citizens at home, not through PR extravaganzas of ill-informed outsiders.” The future will tell if the effort of Gates and like-minded reformers will be a catalyst for global change, but Gates isn’t worried. The founder of Microsoft has seen some tough challenges through and his ever-present smile has yet to show a hint of fading.
