Monday, January 28, 2008

Bill Gates and capitalism

Gates highlighted some fundamental problems with capitalism, including how innovation and technological advancement create an ever-growing economic disparity between the bottom third and the rest of the world's population. When businesses earn more profits in regions that are already economically stable, innovation tends to bypass the world's poor.

In what he calls "creative capitalism," Gates hopes to banish some of this disconnect by encouraging a new system of business. This new system would promote economic incentives for global powers to have a bigger presence in areas of the world stricken by disease and poverty, particularly Africa. When doing business there would not present profitable opportunities, using a company's reputation to pull in money is one way to use the marketplace to help the poor.

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