Leland Teschler
Editor
Gates said words to
the effect that what he’s accomplished
by founding Microsoft
has been no great contribution
to society. So he wants to “give
something back” through philanthropy
aimed at reducing world
poverty.
Critics argue with the idea that
Microsoft’s products haven’t
given society “value.” They point
out that though Gates’s intentions
are noble, his gifts aren’t
likely to be any more effective
than much larger aid programs
that have been around for years.
On this score, I can give Bill
Gates some advice based on my
own small attempts at helping
people in need. When the Berlin
Wall fell in 1989, I was part of a
group that raised and sent funds
to orphanages in Romania. Conditions
in these institutions were
horrific: It wasn’t uncommon to
find them with no heat, no working
plumbing, and not even glass
in the windows.
We quickly found out how difficult
it was to help these children.
Raising money was the
easy part. Getting that money
to the right people was much
tougher. We arranged for a shipment
of shoes to one orphanage.
It never got through the orphanage
door. The institution’s Romanian
staff appropriated the
shoes for their own use. Ditto
for the first shipment of toys we
arranged.
Later, we contributed funds
for buying a van to haul supplies
from a nearby village. We
got word that soon after the van
arrived, it disappeared. The aid
organization through which we
worked did
some nosing around
and eventually found
the van. The
orphanage
director had
sold it to line
his own pockets.
The irony about these incidents
of larceny was that they
happened despite close supervision
by professional aid workers
from an organization that had
an international reputation for
keeping such shenanigans to a
minimum.
So when Bill Gates donates the
bulk of his $90 billlion fortune to
charitable uses, I hope he has better
luck than we did. I am afraid a
sizable chunk of Gates’s philanthropy
will get diverted to parties
who don’t need it nearly as badly
as those it is intended for.
But the real irony is that even
if Bill Gates decided not to give
away a single penny, he has already
had a great positive impact
on reducing poverty. The two biggest
success stories in poverty relief
over recent decades are China
and India. The total number of
people below the poverty line in
those countries fell by 390 million
in 30 years. These improvements
are largely due to these countries
warming up to capitalism. But it is
debatable whether these changes
would have taken place without
the productivity improvements
made possible by the PC and, by
extension, software developed or
sold by Microsoft.
When all is said and done, it’s
likely that history will remember
Microsoft as a far bigger force in
reducing poverty than any charity
from Bill Gates