Byron
11-09-00, 07:52 PM 11-09-00
From The Melbourne Age
9th November 2000
World's richest man is poor's best hope
By ROBERT SCHEER
Bill Gates for president - next time. Now that we've become used to
millionaires running for the US presidency, why not a billionaire and
a self-made one at that? At least Gates is aware that the biggest
problem in the world is not how to make some Americans even wealthier
but how to deal with the abysmal poverty that defines the condition of
two-thirds of God's people.
Odd as it may seem, it took the richest man in the world, in a speech
last week, to remind us that no man is an island, and that when most
of the world's population lives on the edge of extinction, it mocks
the rosy predictions for our common future on a wired planet.
Gates shocked a conference of computer-industry wizards with the news
that the billions of people who subsist on a dollar a day are not in a
position to benefit from the Information Age. He charged that the
hoopla over the digital revolution, which he pioneered, is now a
dangerous distraction from the urgent need to deal seriously with the
festering problem of world poverty. Gates, who has donated an enormous
amount to charity, also made the case that private donations alone
will not solve the problem, and that massive government intervention
is needed.
"Do people have a clear idea of what it is to live on $1 a day?" Gates
asked. "There's no electricity in that house. None. You're just buying
food, you're trying to stay alive."
The "Creating Digital Dividends" conference he addressed was one of
those occasions in which the computer industry indulges the hope that,
as it earns enormous profits, it is solving the major problems facing
humanity. The premise of the conference was that "market drivers"
could be used "to bring the benefits of connectivity and participation
in the e-economy to all the world's sixbillion people".
Gates, who was the conference's closing speaker, doused that hope by
denying that the poor would become part of the wired world any time
soon. In a follow-up interview, Gates amplified his view of what
occurs when computers are suddenly donated to the poor: "The mothers
are going to walk right up to that computer and say, `My children are
dying, what can you do?' They're not going to sit there and, like,
browse eBay."
Gates, who has long extolled the power of computers to solve the
world's problems, criticised himself for having been "naive - very
naive". He has shifted the focus of the $21 billion Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation from donating Information Age technology to meeting
the health needs of the poorest, beginning with the widespread
distribution of vaccines.
The New York Times reported that Gates "has lost much of the faith he
once had that global capitalism would prove capable of solving the
most immediate catastrophes facing the world's poorest people,
especially the 40,000 deaths a day from preventable diseases. He added
that more philanthropy and more government aid - especially a greater
contribution to foreign health programs by American taxpayers - are
needed for that".
Given that Gates is presumably the biggest of those taxpayers, that is
the most provocative challenge to the complacency of the
"free-markets-and-trade-will-solve-everything" ideology that dominates
the thinking of both major parties in America. US foreign aid to the
poor represents a pathetic fraction of the nation's budget, while
America devotes ever-larger sums to building a sophisticated military
without a sophisticated enemy in sight. Yet those misplaced priorities
went totally unchallenged by the presidential candidates of both major
parties.
Poverty is the major security problem in the world today. The
have-nots have many windows to the haves, and resentment is
inevitable. It is the breeding ground of disorder and terror, and it
is absurd to think a stable new world order can be built on such an
uneven foundation.
One of the ironies of the wired world is that those terrorists in
their remote mountain camps are wired to the Internet, which has
facilitated the coordination of their evil plans. The terrorists have
all the laptops and cellular phones they want, but they depend for
their effectiveness on recruiting from the ranks of the alienated poor
who don't have medicines, food or a safe source of water.
Robert Scheer is a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Times, where
this article first appeared.
9th November 2000
World's richest man is poor's best hope
By ROBERT SCHEER
Bill Gates for president - next time. Now that we've become used to
millionaires running for the US presidency, why not a billionaire and
a self-made one at that? At least Gates is aware that the biggest
problem in the world is not how to make some Americans even wealthier
but how to deal with the abysmal poverty that defines the condition of
two-thirds of God's people.
Odd as it may seem, it took the richest man in the world, in a speech
last week, to remind us that no man is an island, and that when most
of the world's population lives on the edge of extinction, it mocks
the rosy predictions for our common future on a wired planet.
Gates shocked a conference of computer-industry wizards with the news
that the billions of people who subsist on a dollar a day are not in a
position to benefit from the Information Age. He charged that the
hoopla over the digital revolution, which he pioneered, is now a
dangerous distraction from the urgent need to deal seriously with the
festering problem of world poverty. Gates, who has donated an enormous
amount to charity, also made the case that private donations alone
will not solve the problem, and that massive government intervention
is needed.
"Do people have a clear idea of what it is to live on $1 a day?" Gates
asked. "There's no electricity in that house. None. You're just buying
food, you're trying to stay alive."
The "Creating Digital Dividends" conference he addressed was one of
those occasions in which the computer industry indulges the hope that,
as it earns enormous profits, it is solving the major problems facing
humanity. The premise of the conference was that "market drivers"
could be used "to bring the benefits of connectivity and participation
in the e-economy to all the world's sixbillion people".
Gates, who was the conference's closing speaker, doused that hope by
denying that the poor would become part of the wired world any time
soon. In a follow-up interview, Gates amplified his view of what
occurs when computers are suddenly donated to the poor: "The mothers
are going to walk right up to that computer and say, `My children are
dying, what can you do?' They're not going to sit there and, like,
browse eBay."
Gates, who has long extolled the power of computers to solve the
world's problems, criticised himself for having been "naive - very
naive". He has shifted the focus of the $21 billion Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation from donating Information Age technology to meeting
the health needs of the poorest, beginning with the widespread
distribution of vaccines.
The New York Times reported that Gates "has lost much of the faith he
once had that global capitalism would prove capable of solving the
most immediate catastrophes facing the world's poorest people,
especially the 40,000 deaths a day from preventable diseases. He added
that more philanthropy and more government aid - especially a greater
contribution to foreign health programs by American taxpayers - are
needed for that".
Given that Gates is presumably the biggest of those taxpayers, that is
the most provocative challenge to the complacency of the
"free-markets-and-trade-will-solve-everything" ideology that dominates
the thinking of both major parties in America. US foreign aid to the
poor represents a pathetic fraction of the nation's budget, while
America devotes ever-larger sums to building a sophisticated military
without a sophisticated enemy in sight. Yet those misplaced priorities
went totally unchallenged by the presidential candidates of both major
parties.
Poverty is the major security problem in the world today. The
have-nots have many windows to the haves, and resentment is
inevitable. It is the breeding ground of disorder and terror, and it
is absurd to think a stable new world order can be built on such an
uneven foundation.
One of the ironies of the wired world is that those terrorists in
their remote mountain camps are wired to the Internet, which has
facilitated the coordination of their evil plans. The terrorists have
all the laptops and cellular phones they want, but they depend for
their effectiveness on recruiting from the ranks of the alienated poor
who don't have medicines, food or a safe source of water.
Robert Scheer is a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Times, where
this article first appeared.