

Bill Gates Calls for "Revision of Capitalism" - tx
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120113473219511791.html?mod=djemalertTECH

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cratuki
I suspect Gates doesn't really understand what capitalism is. All of his
fortune has been built on the back of legislative protection. And - specific
to charity - I have several times noticed Microsoft gaining positive media for
the 'charity' of giving away free software that costs it nothing to give, and
which only has value in that form due to an arbitrary ruling from the relevant
government.

Here are some good starting points for helping the world's poor:

1) End the practice of propping up corrupt foreign governments with aid

2) Stop subsidising first world farmers and thereby killing the markets for
the second and third world (including flow-on effects coming from ludicrous
things like ethanol subsidy)

3) Governments cease support for rent-seeking measures like copyright and
patents.

4) Abolish government-enforced wage floors which subsidise the low income
earners at the expense of the genuinely poor by preventing business from
finding employment for them.

5) Don't make environmental policy until recorded facts genuinely point to a
need for it.

Everywhere around us the invisible hand of the state is interfering in our
lives through pork-barrelling schemes that benefit those close to power at the
expense of the rest. The big lie is in the claim that we have now is
capitalism. Even in the United States, what we first world countries have now
is better referred to as 'mixed economies'. They have elements of capitalism
but are some distance from actual capitalism.

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curi
How do you figure that all of Gates' fortune was built on the back of
legislative protection? Microsoft got in legal trouble for bundling IE with
windows, for example. Which was the Government working to hurt MS in favor of
its competitors.

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davidw
Correct - MS' fortune came from the network effects of their system, but they
had to be successful in the first place for those to work in their favor.

This book has some good history of "the early years", when it wasn't clear
that MS would be the winner that took all:

[http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/10/in-search-of-
stupi...](http://www.squeezedbooks.com/book/show/10/in-search-of-stupidity-
over-twenty-years-of-high-tech-marketing-disasters-second-edition)

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gregwebs
He could start by not sabotaging the One Laptop Per Child project.

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johnrob
One big problem with charity is that nobody cares until they are mega rich.
The middle and lower classes don't have resources and don't feel the same
moral obligations.

If the model is get rich then help people, then there's never going to be very
many people doing it. The real heroes are the people who give to charity
BEFORE they are wealthy. That model could change the world.

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anaphoric
Oh so right you are!

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mynameishere
Bill Gates should stop looking at the failings of capitalism in Africa and
start looking at its successes in China. And then he needs to ask the 60
billion dollar question: What is the difference between Africa and China?

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budu3
I don't think the millions of Chinese peasant farmers will agree that
capitalism is a success in China.

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mynameishere
As they are replaced by machines I suppose they wouldn't, no. As they move to
industrial or commercial areas they probably will.

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Prrometheus
Over 90% of American farmers were replaced by machines. We seem to be better
off for it.

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davidw
Well, some rural communities report that the children were pretty distraught
when they came home from school to find metallic replacements for their
fathers, but a little bit more allowance money allayed their distress in most
cases.

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lvecsey
If MSFT as a company reaches a survival point where they have to release free
software, it would be a nice touch for the code to be readable, well-written
and nearly bug free.

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run4yourlives
Heh, one thing at a time dude.

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budu3
If we can develop complex finacial instruments that manage to package up
mortgage debts and sell them off then we can find a way to make capitalism
work for the poor.

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apotheon
Ooh, magic! Capitalism already works for the poor!

Notice that in the more-capitalistic nations, the "poor" are richer than the
"middle class" in less-capitalistic nations, in general.

