Gates ♥ Capitalism
MichaelW on Jan 29 2008 at 2:57 pm | Filed under: Economics, Libertarianism, MichaelW's Page, regulation
Commenting on Bill Gates’ advocacy for “kinder capitalism,” Steven Bainbridge notes:
But when did Bill Gates ever believe in capitalism? He’s an inveterate monopolist and has been since the beginning. Monopolists hate real capitalism, precisely because they hate competition. Monopolists love corporate social responsibility because it creates barriers to entry. So of course Bill Gates is going to turn “a cold shoulder to the blessings capitalism bestows.”
His follow-up is here.
Needless to say, Prof. Bainbridge is exactly right. In fact, it was something that Adam Smith warned of long ago:
To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers … The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
The Wealth of Nations, Book I Chapter XI
Another Smith quote seems appropriate to this situation as well:
I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
Here, here.
[HT: Instapundit]
Sphere: Related Content
Bill Gates = Gail Wynand.
I thought Gail needed a link, though an Objectivist might claim I should make readers do it themselves.
Wynand sort of works, except that he came from nothing, and in the end tried to do the right thing.
Peter Keating seems more analogous because he was born rich, never really had to try, basically ripped off the work of others and ruthlessly exploited his relative position to others. Plus, in the end he gives up what he truly wants for the sake of others.
James Taggart is a pretty good match for many of the same reasons. He has the added bonus of having some abilities (he was Dagney’s brother after all), and he is well aware that his sense of altruism is purely for show — he wants to maintain his lofty status by buying off the lesser beings with other people’s talents.
Of course, if you consider Gates’ misfortune with the relentless anti-trust suits, both here and in Europe, you can’t help but draw a comparison to Hank Rearden.
Come to think of it, Rand could probably write an entire book around Bill Gates.