Bill Gates Discusses How To Fix Capitalism | TIME 

i switched to linux 7 years ago as a way to fix capitalism

Interestingly, the more the rich "help the poor ", the poorer they get.

It saddens me that you truly feel this guy is doing anything to fix it, being one of the biggest capitalists himself

How to fix capitalism? Wow, thank you, Bill Gates, next can you please teach us how can we pick a turd by the clean side?

lol in almost every frame of this video there are three TIME logos. Trying a bit hard, guys.

yay! fix the problems of capitalism with, you guessed it, more capitalism! the man is a philanthrocapitalist genius!!! chomksy was definitely right about him.

You've put it rather simply, but yes. What I meant is that we should implement ideas from all of these systems to build a new, better one. A system where everyone has the bare essentials (roof, food and education) and those that wish to get further rewards for their labour will work for it. We need to make tools to empower the masses and allow them to truly be independent if they choose to be.

How to fix capitalism? Lets start with letting actual capitalism exist. There is no free market, there is the market that the government decides is allowed. The problem is big government and insane excess of laws.

When government controls currency and education for the most part, it's kind of a stretch to call what's left of the economy capitalism.

Translation: We need to focus our methods of depopulation on those who aren't contributory to critical roles in our idealist utopian bohemian society. We need cellphones and mobile devices accessible to the impoverished that emit shortwave frequencies (using cellphones in creative ways), discount foods grown with genetically modified components and poor quality standards (better nutrition), more innovative methods of financial exploitation. (better banking) and medications that deteriorate the drive that the impoverished commonly have. We own most of the media, so we can slander whatever the hell we want to, and the average idiot will jump on the bandwagon out of collective fear and paranoia from your peers. Not one single mention or implication on providing services that would offer these people a chance to create something for themselves, or live within more feasible means to eliminate the ideology of poverty, homelessness, and desolation altogether, Typical fucking industrialists.

"Thats pretty fucking rich" ... I see what you did there

How to fix Capitalism: Make it not be capitalism...great solution. Competitive Capitalism is the reason that the USA, Britain, Germany, Japan, South Korea, increasingly China, and India, have been able to move hundreds of millions of people out of poverty within recent human history. The human race began in poverty and ignorance, it is no mystery as to why some large groups of people are still in that state. The real questions are: how did the wealthy people get so rich? And how are those who most recently moved themselves out of poverty managing to do it? When Bill Gates says 'we need to get corporations to do...', does he mean 'we need to force corporations to do ...'

A separation of corporate and state is the only way things can be fixed. Government meddling with corporations and corporate with government, it's a disaster.

You should write an autobiography or a memoir! It isn't easy to climb out of poverty by any measure, but thanks for reminding people that it can be done. Luck is a factor, but there's still hope for people out there.

Capitalism doesn't need fix, capitalism is the fix. The current system is a worst abuse of free market with the aid of the state and it saddens me to see so many people so deluded. We need capitalism to work, the way it worked in America almost a century ago.

lol at all the people on windows bitching about Bill Gates

When was it that he sold his soul?

Gates is a magnificent example of how someone can be incredibly intelligent, yet sorely lacking in wisdom.

He talks about the free market as though it can be centrally managed and still be a free market. What he is speaking of is STATE CAPITALSIM. "BY TWEAKING EACH INDUSTRY" -- Who is going to manage the tweaking and how do ensure that kind of power in the hands of central powers won't be oppressive to the poor?

To the people saying he is a hypocrite: If you see other rich people voicing their genuine opinion on helping the poor, you will think this guy is a saint.

"there are clearly some things that these companies with their great resources and their innovation power -- if we get them to apply that more significantly to those with the most needs that we can reduce impoverishment far faster than simply relying on government alone." B Gates Who is the "we" Gates is talking about? How do "we" get "them" to apply "their resources" to the problems in society? By asking nicely? By coercion? Are young college grads with the high IQs (as Gates said) supposed to somehow make their employment contingent on companies doing more humanitarian work? Is that why Monsanto and GE etc are so socially progressive? Because they are competing for the best minds? What a joke! The "we" is the collective we of the US or of the world. But how does a collective "we" organize to address problems? Ad hoc through individual efforts? Only if you're at the level of someone like Bill Gates. Why can't the "we" be our collective voice through the government? Isn't that the whole point of a democracy? It would be if the corporate interests weren't interfering. Capitalists are always talking about getting government out of the way, what about getting corporations out of the way of people controlling their own government and allowing it to function as "we" want it to? I'm not saying that government needs to be the solution for all problems only pointing out that there's cognitive dissonance to claim that government is the problem while capitalism (through its lobbyists) are the ones ensuring that government is "the problem." Gates is right that ""there are clearly some things that these companies [can and should do]." But there is nothing stopping them. Wealthy corporations or individuals can --and some do -- use a small % of their resources to address these issues now. Gates, Buffet & other philanthropists are doing more than most. That's great but given that so much disposable wealth is concentrated in the upper 1% already and their taxes are about as low or non existent as they've ever been, the capitalists "ought" to be doing what they claim they'd do if "we" allowed them to keep more of their money -- to use it more wisely than the government could. Are they? If they were Gates wouldn't be making an "ought" argument (he said that companies should devote 5% of their resources to helping solve catastrophic problems). Charity is a tax write off (meaning tax payers are the ones really funding charity in the first place through government). If government "got out of the way" that would mean no tax write offs which would mean LESS charity, not more (I realize Gates is not calling for no government but he is talking about "we" being less reliant on government. And he rightly states that less money = less voice, i.e. less "we." Ironically, without government (i.e. "we" funding and creating the internet), Gates wouldn't be one of the most successful capitalists of the century. Or probably he believes that because of his IQ he would be successful no matter the social organization. Who knows? And that's really all he's said here: the high IQ people should insist that the corporations compete for their talents and then they will be in a position to change the world. This is the idea of society organized as a "meritocracy" originally coined facetiously, not seriously. I understand, given how dysfunctional government is, that the tendency is toward anarchy to some extent and for the super wealthy like Gates to want to take matters into their own hands, to use their money to do the good they want. I don't blame him. I would too. But, unlike Gates, I would also be funding efforts to get money out of politics (yes, I see the irony) so that "we" through government can address social problems, perhaps tax that extra 5% Gates talks about. In Western Europe they use a process called consociationalism. A big word for power sharing. Where representatives of business, labor, environment, etc. all get together and civilly address social problems (that's why they have no "climate change" deniers of any significance). The only "interest group" with any real power in the US are the capitalists (of course, given the pesky business of elections the capitalists -- ie. Republicans -- need to bring in a bunch of anti social crazies -- bigots of one type or another-- into their coalition to get elected and wield power). Allowing any one group access to so much power is dangerous, regardless of the group. People like Gates and Richard Branson are right, capitalism has lost its way, and while I'm not against Gates' solutions, I do believe in a role for government, if we can get money out of it. If not, perhaps it does do more harm than good (with regulatory capture, etc.). But without government there is nothing but private ownership of everything, no more "commons" and we might as well return to monarchy (but even they had a commons!) My response is all predicated on the capitalism "as is" but I don't believe in capitalism "as is" but that's another issue for another time.

Welcome to 2020 where he has become a Coronavirus expert too, LMAO!

How to fix capitalism? Get government out of it

Just because something worked better than previous versions, doesn't mean we should keep it. We have to keep learning from experience and making things better,

do yourselves a favor, and search for: Jacque Fresco

How to fix capitalism? Get rid of capitalism!

BAHAhahahaha corporations that care LOL!

I remember some news, in 2005, when Vietnam was opening up to the West. They were both in the same newspaper: 1. Bill & Melinda Gates donated 25 million $ to children/orphans etc. in Vietnam; 2 (very far in the newspaper) MIcrosoft signed an exclusivity deal for their OS with the government of Vietnam. I said to myself: Yeah! Get 2 billion $ with CALs and other crap one doesn't need to work on and then, oh Great Soul, donate 25 millions for that warm, charitable feeling!

There is a distinction between collaborative private enterprise and the price-fixing of essential goods ike petroleum, which the American oil companies do with gasoline, and which constitutes them as a cartel. I agree that the Silicone Valley giants including Walmart could afford to pay higher wages and offer more benefits to their employees and still make a decent profit, but their election not to as you have pointed out is part of the nature of the free market beast. Capitalism is not a perfect economic system nor is it always fair, especially when there is corrupt collusion between private enterprise and government, which is known as "crony capitalism." But it is nevertheless a better alternative than coercive collectivism. Written By: Atelston Fitzgerald Holder 1st

Bill Gates is a voice of reason. While all the neo liberalists are spewing their narrowminded dogma across RU-vid, here is a man who understands how capitalism and social responsibility must go together to solve global problems.

Capitalism is what got us in this whole energy/environment dilemma in the first place..

He's beyond that, focusing on bettering the world with his vast resources

*The system doesnt work well at all.* Thats why there is a growing inequality, and why 5 of 9 global life support systems are over-stressed. Capitalism is life-blind, and rewards calculating selfish behaviour (i.e. psychopathy). Capitalism is inherently unsustainable, and in the past decades, it entered its cancer stage, resulting in an ecological overshoot. There is no use-value production between the transformation of money into more money, and this pure $0 >$1 >$n circuit has become for the first time in history the dominant form of capital investment. Even GM and GE today make more profit via loans than by producing stuff.

No, Bill. Laissez-faire is the solution.

Hong Kong is still standing and has benefited from free market capitalism turning it from a 3rd world city to a major world class city in around 50 years.

Profit sharing can fix capitalism.

If you want to call it that. But when money is taken out of the equation, it has no teeth as there is no corruption like fraud, extortion and greed.

USSR was socialist at some point (during the civil war). it was called millitary socialism. But after that, what the Americans call "communist Russia" was nothing else than cruel dictatorship.

You can't understand the lives of those who live in poverty without experiencing it directly. Anyone with super-wealth knows not anything about poverty!

Monopolies usually happen when the government is involved. We have antitrust laws in place to prevent monopolies. Nobody argues for absolute Capitalism, that is anarchy. Capitalists believe in a balanced approach to the market with reasonable laws to prevent exploitation. We also wouldn't allow a company to make defective merchandise and sell it without negative consequences. That is called a Constitutional Republic with an invisible fulcrum balancing freedom and order proportionately.

Good point, Bill Gates didn't even invent any sort of Windows operating system we know and use today either, he took a DOS program that ordered computer contents in expandable lists and then hired other people to do all the work for him, and Windows would have failed as an OS if someone else hadn't recognized the importance of making it a viable gaming platform and rebuilding the whole thing to run games like DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D

It doesn't have to be about the bottom line -- it has to be about improving quality of life. This is the new Capitalism that Millennium's will pioneer.

This a great lesson on the art of bullshitting. How to say a thousand words without actually saying anything? Bill here is a great example of that.

If a group starts to buy all the companies in a certain industry, there is nothing consumers can do, especially with the big ones like technology, oil and agriculture.

It's not "forcing" in the common way.Capitalism has found a way to keep people consuming as much as possible.They perfected the advertising industry.They know what words to use,what songs, what images,exactly how long to make the ads in order to make the consumer be subliminally coerced into wanting the product. We are saturated with indoctrinating advertisement constantly.They force our minds into a corner of blind consumption and then we buy because we have been conditioned to do so.

I thought Fascism was pretty much just loyalty to the government, like when Hitler was dictator of Germany,Mussolini was dictator of Italy, or Stalin was dictator of the Soviet Union.

Look at what Carlos Slim did and tell me that that's not a problem. There is no way that consumers can fix that. That's why we have anti trust laws. If you stop buying the product, you get left behind. If you give in, they can make their price be whatever they want. As a business owner, the most terrifying thing to me is competitors, and the idea that my customers might switch to them. If I bought them out, I wouldn't have to worry about good products, good services or competitive prices.

Sorry Bill. You of all people should know better than to say that the internet was a product of capitalism.

I believe a counter-argument to what Mr. Gates proposes would be the fact that many of the countries that suffer heavily from famine, disease, lack of purchasing power, are often the countries that have the LEAST economic freedom. To illustrate: The top 5 most economically free countries are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, the 5 countries with the least economic freedom are N. Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Eritrea. The more free are much better off.

You do realize that all Bill Gates has talked about in this video is a ranking system to increasing the advertising power of philanthropy. Now I didn't read the article, but what's in this video is incentivizing charitable programs through an increase in transparency, marketing and branding.

he's given $28 billion dollars to charity so far and is trying to eradicate polio. nuff said.

The crux of my point is that the idea of real estate as an investment that should equal wealth creation is insane.Houses.Boom or no boom,plenty of people think this is a normal,healthy attitude.But is oppressive in that it always insinuates inflation and automatic debt slavery.

Carlos Slim is a perfect example of what I tried explaining to you earlier, that is - government involvement can lead to crony capitalism which contributes to the problem. Wikipedia: "The Mexican Senate, which has received contributions from Carlos Slim, has made it easier for firms to hire and fire workers, and shorten labor disputes." So to suggest more government involvement to fix the problem of too much government involvement is kind of a conundrum.

There is something wrong with what Standard Oil did. Corporate espionage, bribery, and coercion are bad enough, but the effect it had on local economies was devastating. How does a true monopoly, lack of any competition, bring reduced prices? The answer is it doesn't. Soon after Standard Oil wiped out the competition in an area, the prices skyrocketed in that area. In a monopoly the overall amount of jobs in a given area decrease tremendously.

All addictions can be fought off, my uncles a 6 year sober meth head, it was not corporations, but underground markets that addicted him.

You can't fix capitalism. As long as labour, capital, and responsibility are separated, then the worker will not be free.

"The poor get poorer" part of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" cliche is utter bullshit. What passes for poverty today would be a life of luxury 100 years ago.

A GMO is a Genetically Modified Organism, there have been several breakthroughs in that technology. Just because some companies abuse the technology and do some questionable things with it doesn't mean the technology is bad or that it couldn't benefit us.

if you ever noticed he's no long one of the richest in the world, he is actually investing the money hey got from the people by Microsoft back to them, in a special way

Clearly no 1 system is perfect. Not pure capitalism nor pure communism or any other political system. What have shown to be a succes when you start mixing everything up a little bit.

Thank you !

That's correct. That's competition, not a monopoly.

Bill, if you're so committed to helping give away all your money to the ghettos around the world, and there are MANY!

When people purchase something, they do it because they want what they purchased more than they want the alternatives that the same amount of money (and non-monetary costs) can buy. If you can turn a profit in a truly free market, it means you're offering people something that is better for them than what other people are offering. In other words, their life with you is better than without. That is how capitalism leads to prosperity.

The mainstream markets are just as guilty of selling us horribly addictive crap. The difference is that it's legal for them to sell it, and it's not as frowned upon. McDonalds is far more acceptable than meth. Beer is far more acceptable. They make massive profit on addiction. Matter of fact, they depend on it in order to maintain their dominance of the market.

Our system is not working but the thing is we do have capitalism.

Google has given an incentive to India, they sold Android tablets really cheap to the Indian government so that they in turn could give away and or sell the public those tablets for a really reasonable price, affordable for all Indian residents, this was a step forward into the right direction, because it gives people in India the opportunity to go on the Internet which gives them lots of good information to learn so that they, each person, can improve her/ his life. Teach a person how to fish.

"There are 2 principles that constitute Capitalism: 1. The free exchange of money, goods and services 2. Private ownership / right to property" Source? We speak of "crony" capitalism and "state" capitalism, like Mussolini's corporatism. This is why I prefer to specify "free-market" capitalism. There will always be private property. It just will become less and less rooted in free-market principles and more rooted in bribes and brown-nosing.

Everyone knows he made his money by establishing a monopoly. That doesn't mean he is insincere about this. He seems satisfied with the wealth he has attained.

Good point. And the "accumulation of wealth" motive is the core issue which leads to the insane, inhumane, unethical behavior we see, even praise, today.

You make an interesting point....but here is a dilemma I have with this area. I was part of senior management of a large telecom company. Every few years we would have a round of negotiations with our union of workers..(the guys..as you say..that "dont sit on their assess but actually do the work") In every case we offered a number of enhancements to their package...but we always made a point of of tying the financial success of our company to the package. They wanted no part of it..ever!

The housing bubble was a confluence of elements but mostly happened from the rise of the internet and the temporary wealth it created and the subsequent greed it spawned when people thought it was normal or sane that their properties should rise hundreds of percent in value. Inflation is an insane concept, a cognitive disconnect, that people go along with when they think it benefits them.

The rich get richer until there's not enough to sustain the rest of us. Your system not only makes the rich richer, it gives them more and more control, more and more of the wealth that we need to make our society function.

(Continue) The real issue that you need to understand how it works, is that overtime people will mean well by implementing certain rights to government they shouldn't have in form of altruism, when in the long run it doesn't play out how they hope it would. People frustrations is understandable, but you shouldn't blame a system that has done more good than it has done bad. Nothing is perfect and if your upset at what happen the last few years, goes to show how much you know what was going on.

how do we know it would have worked? i find it hard to believe that 100 years would have gone by without someone remaking this

'When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you are destined to be a poor man and a poor woman the rest of your life.' The poor don't get private studies to do their homework in, they don't get private tutors, they don't get a good environment to excel in or good teachers, and they don't get much choice

What I'm saying is that if a person or conglomerate starts buying out all the companies in a particular industry, there isn't really anything consumers can do. You can't switch companies, and you can't stop buying the product, especially if it's in one of the big three that I mentioned earlier.

I don't understand what all the fuss is over capitalism in our country. Some want to change it, tweak it, modify it or want to eliminate it all together!! IMO, we haven't had a capitalist society in this country for a VERY LONG TIME.

We should promote inovation for poverty...And how do you do that ? You put money in it. So you don't give money directly to the poors, but to the big companies that are working on the inovation.

end central banking, corporate welfare and big government..

Putting other people out of business through a cheap and good product isn't monopolizing... I know this because I am typing this on a Mac using Google Chrome.

You're not going to force private businesses to act for anything that isn't profit-maximizing, Bill. The free market isn't like a block of clay that you can mold. technology and innovation itself affects business and resources.

We have capitalism. So did Fascist Italy. Capitalism simply means the "accumulation of wealth." We have that. What we don't have is relatively free-market capitalism.

GATES! HOW ABOUT THE BIG COMPANIES HELP THE POOR BY - EMPLOYING THEM !!!!!..TABERNAK..!!!!!!

Actually, my main study is on the failed logic of (mainstream) macroeconomics and what it can be supplanted with. So I actually 100% agree with you. Trouble is, mainstream economists today aren't experts in the economy per-se, they're experts on a model of the economy. History of economic thought is all but erased from economic debate. The real insight in economics has already happened but is largely ignored in favour of the neo-classical/keynesian ideology. Marx, Schumpeter, Minsky, Mises f.t.w

I don't see how that's relevant. I'm no fan of Microsoft's business practices, but I don't see how their monopoly stops money from making it to the poor. Also, he's not talking about distributing money to the poor. He's talking about driving innovation in directions that benefit the masses - the poor included - and he's very consistent in that position historically and currently.

"Money is only the representation of time served in service to others." "Time spent producing an item - time used to accomplish a task" - is valued in "money". WE all have a choice in the exchange of our wears and time for the offered amount of "money". "MANY OF US TAKE LESS THAN WHAT OUR TIME IS WORTH THEN COMPLAIN".

Had governments invested in clean energy in a big way thirty years ago we would have been further ahead than we are now (i.e., waiting for oil supplies to dry up before clean energy becomes cost-effective).

Actually that's Steve Ballmer's responsibility now.

The late Terence McKenna suggested that perhaps every woman should only have one child, (as a goal but with exceptions both ways, of course) and within 50 years the population would halve according to his research. In 150 years he calculated that they "Would be worried that there aren't enough people."

Bill if you want people believe in what you saying you can make Microsoft Excel - free, give Microsoft Word for free, and turn Windows to an Open Source project. That would be creative.

If I had 50 billion dollars, I would have no problem donating billions of it. Its easy to donate that much, when you have that much. Not saying that Gates is a fake guy or anything, I mean donating to charities is very noble, but its not like its putting him on the same playing field as the rest of us.

Corporation will not allowed the poor to make move... The reality is that they can't survive without the poor.. Why can't try have a driven mind toward helping the world poorest?

capitalism isn't failing companies, it's failing society. we shouldn't be looking to the rich for solutions anymore. they're the ones who created, enabled, and benefited from a system. why would they want to change that?

Yes you're correct, Neil Degrasse Tyson for more on that. In todays society it's actually not large corporations and Governments doing all the huge breakthroughs it's also individuals and small groups making giant impacts as well. Take the story of Jack Andraka, only using the power of the internet did he create a way of detecting early pancreatic cancer that was 26,000 times cheaper and hundreds of times more sensitive then the leading methods before, now that incredible.

Any other corporation COULD take advantage but in a monopoly that other corporation DOESN'T because it doesn't exist. After all, a monopoly only exists when no competition is around. Thats WHY they jack prices up. The monopoly exists until new competition shows up. But the corporation with monopoly can very easily crush other competition that pops up with the amazing amount of resources it has leading to the monopoly being extended. Which is what happened with Standard Oil.

The system is working perfectly ... for the rich.

My pleasure by the way. I think static analysis through econometric models can be used to further enhance the story, but we should be aiming to be in line with the natural sciences in modelling techniques. Pure dynamic models and static analysis should be used side by side.

Some of them are called ice cream sandwich. Well, they are giving those tablets to those people who are trying to get an education, some of them have a small businesses. Not all people in India are poor. There is a great need for education. "Teach a person how to fish and you helped him for life". J.N.

Btw, being a CEO doesn't necessarily mean that one is a share holder. I think you should define the word "producer" before you start telling the world who is a producer and who isn't...