"Three weeks ago, on a flight home from a New Zealand vacation, Mr. Gates took out a yellow pad of paper and listed ideas about why capitalism, while so good for so many, is failing much of the world. He refined those thoughts into the speech he will give today at the annual Davos conference of world leaders in business, politics and nonprofit organizations."
Bill Gates is a smart man and has, apparently, done a lot of reading on the subject, so I'm not sure how he proposes escaping the obvious weakness of capitalism: government. It's been widely accepted that capitalism needs at least a relatively good, stable government with at least a goodly amount of personal freedom to survive. Preferably, capitalism exists in a good, stable government that allows for a free society and provides a well-educated public. Lacking decent government and at least a decent amount of personal freedom, it doesn't have a chance. The very nature of capitalism is to have all the people in a society relatively free to engage in buying and selling goods without being restricted or disadvantaged.
So, though noble of Gates (and one must credit the enormous amount of money he has given in his philanthropic efforts), I don't see how retooling capitalism somehow will make a bit of difference, quite honestly. I would like to believe it can change a bit to help the impoverished, but if the impoverished live in bad/weak/corrupt governments (as the vast majority of them do), I can't see it happening.
