Creative Capitalism to target the poorest!

Bill Gates is evangelizing Creative Capitalism: "an attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off. "

He reminds us that while "Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people, ......it has left out billions more..................One billion people live on less than a dollar a day. They don't have enough nutritious food, clean water or electricity. The amazing innovations that have made many lives so much better — like vaccines and microchips — have largely passed them by. "

He asserts "it is mainly corporations that have the skills to make technological innovations work for the poor" and thus we should find new ways to bring far more people into the capitalist system.

The fundamental question posed is:

How can we most effectively
spread the benefits of capitalism
and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide
to people who have been left out?

His argument: "....improvements will happen faster and last longer if we can channel market forces, including innovation that's tailored to the needs of the poorest, to complement what governments and nonprofits do. We need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today."

His mission:

More than 30 years ago, Paul Allen and I started Microsoft because we wanted to be part of a movement to put a computer on every desk and in every home. Ten years ago, Melinda and I started our foundation because we want to be part of a different movement — this time, to help create a world where no one has to live on a dollar a day or die from a disease we know how to prevent. Creative capitalism can help make it happen. I hope more people will join the cause.

How do Socialists react to this?

Phil Hearse calls it "idle dreams":

But the main drawback in Gates’ proposal is that it is a schema, an idea though up in a Seattle ivory tower, that has precious little purchase on the real world. That’s why it’s so abstract, for example in its insistence that it’s ‘governments’ and ‘non-profits’ that have to solve the main problems of food, water and poverty. But which governments? Using which methods? Financed how? Paying for infrastructural development with which funds?

Bill talks about C.K. Prahalad, who says, in his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, there are markets all over the world that businesses have missed. A reference is made to one study that found that the poorest two-thirds of the world's population has some $5 trillion in purchasing power.


This is "ammunition" for Phil Hearse:

....the poorest two thirds of humanity wield $5 trillion worth of spending power, so the transnational corporations need to make new markets to exploit/benefit this sector. Well, that’s more than 4.2 billion people. If we do the sums, it’s easy. It’s saying the average annual spend of the poorest two thirds of humanity is $1,190 a year, a pathetic amount that comes to $3.2 a day. Within that there are probably millions who have $10 or $12 a day, many with $4-6 and a billion who have $1 – or less. The target group of ‘creative capitalism’ is never going to be that poorest billion who have virtually nothing at all.

Phil's recommendations?

The billions of the poor and the oppressed need something more practical than creative capitalism to change the structures of their exploitation. Like overthrowing the social relations of capitalist oppression at a local, national and international level.

The debate on Social Freedom goes on.....Which side are you on?