Comments on: Gates misses the point on 'creative capitalism'
perspective The Microsoft chairman's well-intentioned pitch for corporate activism missed the root causes of poverty. (Hint: it's not lack of corporate charity.)
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I think that there is a confusion between the profit managers and the personal wealth managers. It is not necessarily the right thing to do for profit managers to disburse humanitarian aid when there might be a more pressing need for modernization and capital formation.
Capitalists have a long history of humanitarian aid and social do gooding out of their own pocket. How many Universities can you name that have been funded by Capitalist's personal wealth? How many other foundations can you name other than the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? How about the Rockafeller Foundation...The Carnegie-Mellon Foundation...The Ford Foundation, etc.
What happened in Bill Gates case is that he is confusing corporate profits and personal wealth.
There is a difference between "Capitalism" and "A Capitalist's creative use of his personal wealth."
The only thing I am aware of throughout all of nature that behaves in an ever-increasing way - is cancer.
The endeavors of trade and commerce are ancient - and their compasses were not always pointed at ever-increasing profits. This is a fairly "modern" concept. It need not be slavishly followed. As others have noted, humankind's consciousness should chart the paths of trade and commerce - not vice versa.
1) People -- To care for ourselves, loved ones, and our community.
2) Business -- To provide product, innovation, and wealth.
3) Government -- To provide security, structure, and a base set of rules.
It should be the job of all of the above to do these things in the most effecient way possible.
Our leaders, thru the years, have allowed the job of the three to intermingle so that the jobs have become blurred. We need to get back to a simpler time.
The Government needs to shrink & get back to the core job. Let workers keep the majority of their hard earned money. Provide an infrastructure that will allow businesses to innovate, create jobs, create wealth so that people can take care of people.
And business will provide the innovation, jobs, and wealth that will
"People need to understand the role of --
1) People -- To care for ourselves, loved ones, and our community.
2) Business -- To provide product, innovation, and wealth.
3) Government -- To provide security, structure, and a base set of rules."
Each without regard for any of the others. I cannot dissagree more. It creates the attitude of "Every Man For Himself, And The Devil Take The Hindermost." (Author lost in antiquity) That is what has happened to make "common sense & common courtesy uncommon commidities."
Government cannot effectively police such that the greedy ones like the leaders of Enron and others have already hurt many. The only way to avoid that is to have a society in which the perpetrators of harm are made to fully remimburse those that they have harmed and paid for the costs of identifying them and prosecuting them. Managment of a corporation must be considered to be like the captain of a ship. If your corporation causes pain and suffering, the CEO and other top management must be made to reimburse those whom they hurt. When a CEO makes or allows a decision, that will increase his worth and/or his income, and that decision results in damage to others, then he and the others in management should be made to pay.
It is correct to say that a solution needs to start somewhere. But a lasting solution needs to start from the root, if not the roots, of the problem. Radical approaches to solving problems requires some level of creativity. But more importantly, it should be practical enough to last.
If you're rich enough to buy an entire poor country, treat it as a private real estate property, invest on it, develop it and build it from the ground up with the existing population... Just imagine. You can be creative. You can be practical. Better yet, you can be both.
Oh and because of the strain all the innovation will put on my mind the drugs will come in handy too thanks mr Gates.
Gates made his money by taking Dad's advice on licensing models and then working feverishly to neutralize normal market development by locking PC vendors into innovation-crushing contracts or extorting them through threats of denying applications to companies that used competitors like Digital Research.
This bears about as much resemblance to capitalism as arson has to home heating.
0.01% inspriation.
0.001% pratical
Year Civilisation sure knows how to work with Earth outside of civilisation.
Sorry the developing world of 'poor people' for a second there i thought i wasen't healthy and usful with this college education of mine.
I then remembered it's ok i'm Elite theres a glorified Barbicue idea for everyone and The drug industry is and can be whats best for staying alive.
Still i do aknoedge i'm gonna need a lot more Books to get the job done properly.
Oh and because i'm going to help latin americans so well me and my wife can get that more expensive wood based kitchen we didn't know we wanted last year.
It's ok though i'll be using that fuel cell car and 5 years from now i'll have funded the molten carbon based powerstation and i'll have my outside electronics running off solar cells.
So my Ecological foot print will be right down won't it. Actually my empire tells me what i have to worry about is the carbon foot print specifically so it's not really that much of a problem.
Oh and of course with the best drugs to compensatate for any unexpected poor health issues my standard of living will be right up there.
Whoever said creative capitalism wasen't pratical.
But please leave philanthropy and corporate responsibilities to people who know about it. I dont think you folks whose idea of charity is to give thier beat up cars for tax deduction should talk of people who want to dedicate thier lives to better other's lives.
The first reason is because it's good for business. Consumers on the fence about their products begin to perceive the company as 'doing good' and therefore buy more from that company because they think something will rub off. Well, it won't.
The second reason is that if most working stiffs knew how much corporations made off of consumer ignorance concerning true costs, they would probably burn down the rich corporate officers' homes and paint the culprits with pitch. It's sort of a firewall theory, displacing the guilt from them personally and laying it squarely on - what? - a faceless, nameless corporate entity. "Not my fault. I gave." And point the finger elsewhere.
The third reason why they give is because it engenders a sense of indebtedness in the poverty-stricken people to whom they give. Debt is what makes corporations rich. Make the poverse want more, and you've just grown yourself a new customer base that will westernize itself into debt - a concept they were working sustainably without.
The fourth reason they give is that they recognize that corporations have no social conscience whatsoever. They simply cannot sleep. They think it will ease their personal conscience to give back what the corporation cannot. Well, as many have found, it won't. They are burning in their own personal hells, sad to say.
Right now, corporations have more rights than people in America. And they never die. And their entire mission is simply to keep growing.
The Consumer States of America will change only if the follow items become true:
Give monster corporations less power than the people behind their leashes.
Make leash-holders and legal craftspeople culpable for the ill their monsters have created.
Make it illegal for corporations to have more power than government. No more superfund, and corporate welfare trough. No more lobbying. Period.
Make long-term community and ecological sustainability the end goal of corporations. Put it in their charters and make it so government has the legal teeth to 'kill' corporations that don't comply.
Further, China is a huge trading partner right now. It is a despotic government, yet they are embracing us, and we are ebracing them. So much for the, "It's because their governments are despotic and corrupt theory".
Now the truth is much more plain than that. Capitalism needs a government to prevent the road blocks that cause capitalism to have a heart attack.
Politicians and voters need to keep their eyes open to these road blocks, hey we need free press (does China have a free press, No).
What makes China great? Cheap labor. Capitalists see no (high-wage) road blocks so they invest, simple no need to get complex.
What's ailing the U.S. economy? High cost of fossil fuels. Some loss of confidence in banking institutions.
The answer, again basically, remove the road blocks.
We need more competition in the fuel-space. Instead of giving away 1200$ per couple (which is an obvious election year ploy), we should be making sure that there is investment (not the same as give away by the government) money for an alternative to oil, namely ethanol from cellulose (quite different from ethanol from corn, in that the source is much cheaper and abundant).
Now, this is going to be a losing proposition for several years, until the kinks are worked out. But it will have the affect of keeping oil prices from rocketing out of control, (AND STALLING THE FREEWAY).
Second, the government (once again) is being asked to bail out the free-market entities, because they have us all by the gonads. The bail-out numbers this time are for the mortgage insurers, I am hearing number between 200-300 billion.
So lets all take a dose of reality with our capitalism, and realise we are just living in our form of Socialism.
I actually prefer to call all goverment communism (Communism = together with belief). Marxist communism and Adam's Smith's capitalism, are just 2 different forms of communism. Hey, even Adam Smith had to acknowledge property rights? And where do property rights come from? Ever think?
Basically I am applying Hocum's razor to the mythology of Capitalism.
Property rights come from your local county, A.K.A. the government. And what you sacrifice to have that right, nothing more than your body, if needed on a battlefield (Oh, and don't forget the property taxes, income taxes, and various special assessments).
In terms of actual need subjective to the systematic destruction of nature outside of civilisation such that a world of humans is generated only capable of sustaining themselves within the human farm it dosent matter if you use oil or not really. What matters is if you cut the forests down or over fish supplies and if you hold people down at gun point and subtly encourage them through fear to have lots of children for survival.
Now thats what matters.
If you want to see this problem as an economic resource problem then you need to be looking at how you can better sell fish stocks with other food types to lower the fish numbers bought.
You need to find alternatives to wood in furniture and for paper.
Still yes if there was better fuel solutions more developed in the market this percieved poor man might in this world get a more possible chance to develop into the world of transport.
Might i say theres quite a lot of things one could use to replace paper some of which can be farmed well in protected multistory farms out at sea.
There has always been good ideas that could have been adopted to make the economy flow better.
So why you might ask do people who try to impliment or perfect there Civilisation run into such an oppressive (seemly irrational)brick wall that so many now are trying to overcome.
Thats because you can't try and perfect a civilasation that dosen't exsist.
A world order exsists yes which is torn between tribal entities wishing for dominance and one civilisation wanting power within the order also but you personally dont live in a civilisation called America Therefore if you wanted to improve somthing you would have to side with the order respecting that the political issues of the order are to be left to the people who propergate them and that your business interests won't try to distroy this or will enhance this(either option has its risks of failier if implimented incorrectly).
This does give you much room to freely make a profit and a domineering life for yourself but it dosent allow you to perfect civilisation in such a way that politics is removed from peoples concern because of things being to perfect.
Squre Square Wahh Wahh
For that to be true you would have to be underneath a higharaki and your not your in a political system.
If you were under a high araki everything would be order and your wishes to perfect the civilisation better if good would be much apreciated(yes that kind of system is possible,very plesurable and can even be fair).
Oh and yes Sunnies i forgive you for feeling guilty for destroying somthing so amazing of human creation all that time ago but you would only stand a chance in achieving another Exodus over my dead body this time i want you to release your real pain for missing so much opertunity that could have been and allow a new world order in that is best for Earth and not just Man that civilisation has worked hard to understand this wisdom, they are working with you at your pace so they are not that intimidating and therfore other than guilt there is no reason why they are not worthy of full inclusion into a new world order.
Your Garden and perfect being interpritation for what the future should be needs discussing Islam there is a lot you need to discuse with me especial in regards to farming black somthing you need guidence over and are not very wise with.
Note the title at the top is one becomming of great interest to many of us here in the economy.
You can i'll afford to close your eyes to the real world wanting to play or trully hide anymore in hidden regret.
You surley would miss a great oppertunity if you continue down your path regardless having never trully spoken to me for enough time as to improve your evolution and its it somthing Allah would regret.
I have. And it's nothing like what you claim capitalist is. It basically says that the tools of labor will be systematically exploited by their owners to opress the people, so you can't leave them in the hands of the rich. It's exactly the OPPOSITE to Adam Smith's capitalism. There's no possible point of view where they can be put on the same boat. You might say neither works, and I would disagree as well based on the evidence, but that's a discussion we can have. But claiming that Adam Smith's capitalism (or today's capitalism in america for that matter) are communism is just laughable. Go read a book.
hernán
He talked about developing products that solve third world problems. In addition to designing iPods, let's design devices for better plant irrigation. Devices for keeping foods in good condition with minimal power consumption and for a low cost. Devices to keep people from falling sick. For profit if you want. But don't dismiss a market because their people are poor. They are billions. Yes, it is a more difficult target, the margins are lower and there are risks involved. But do it and you might find that new avenue for growth, and help building a stronger, healthier market at the same time.
It's good to give money. Now also make product they can spend it on, efficiently.
And a company can help profitably. Invest the money on a serious microloans company. Returns, while somewhat risky, are higher than on most other investments. And the money lent time after time helps lots of people grow. And as those regions grow, markets grow. So everyone benefits. That's creative capitalism.
Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, as well as many many others
aroudn the world to help create sustainability which means
businesses using a true business model but for which the goals
are not only making money but ALSO providing good to a family,
community etc.
Yunus emphasizes that it is wrong to make profits off of
extremely impoverished people and they should be given access
to credit to start their own entrepreneurial companies for the
needs of the community at prices which are affordable to them!
And it works!!!
If it is necessary for "the poor" to make the products,as an integral part of the profit process, how can they ever benefit. Once their situation improves producers move on to cheaper market places.
Mind you, does their situation improve as they are then induced into a debt culture which seems to also keep us "poor".
We need new leadership to take us our of this endless spiral and Mr Gates needs to rethink his philosophy, albeit that his personal philanthropy is beyond reproach
You'd think that Declan, who graduated from Carnegie Mellon University, would understand this. Of course, Declan did graduate under the cloud of an embezzlement scandal and hounded by a domestic abuse arrest. I guess the nuances of our alma mater slipped his mind. For those that aren't familiar, CMU was founded as Carnegie Technical Institute by Andrew Carnegie. It was originally a regional school dedicated to provided the mill workers children with a functional technical education in order to better their lot (and also provide Carnegie with future engineers, managers, and technicians). Short term it was a money loser but over the long term it has been an economic engine and a research powerhouse. Declan's very education is a stunning refutation of his state position.
as ( esp american) corporations have become international in the evolution of a global economy.. they have lost allegiance to their fellow countrymen and homeland.. profit above all
creative capitalism to me would be ending economic dependence on planned obsolescence and poor quality shortlived products..
- Writing checks is easy
- by Jeff Putz January 28, 2008 7:31 AM PST
- Writing checks is easy, but money doesn't automagically make things happen. Ask any church if they have trouble raising money, and they'll likely tell you it's not a problem. It's getting the bodies to turn that cash into something useful for whatever cause they're supporting that is the problem. A company being that body in motion solves the problem.
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