NEWS: Bill Gates: China has created brand-new form of capitalism

Bill Gates speaking in Davos, Switzerland, praised the Chinese for creating what he termed "a brand-new form of capitalism". This new form benefits the consumer much more than any system in the past. He further praised thier willingness to work hard. However, he also pointed out that they have a much lower legal and medical overhead.



Its a very interesting play. China is without a doubt the biggest source of pirated material and given the total lack of enforcement you have to wonder if its tacitly sanctioned by the government. Microsoft is no doubt hurt by this. So perhaps Gates, like Chirac is making nice in public to get some cooperation from the Chinese Communist government. It worked for Chirac, look at the recent A380 order by China Southern.

Gates is a genius, I admire him. Never expect the usual from him, a true entrepeneur of business. Another genius I admire is the CEO of Virgin mobile, that Australian guy.

Real genius. Yeah, you gotta admire a guy who thinks that making workers live without modern medical benefits or legal redress against exploitation while making hitech products for sale to the West without the overheads of decent wages and benefits for redistribution through wholesale networks to displaced Western workers living on accrued savings, social security and service wages at maximum profit to the resellers is a new form of Capitalism. The only thing new is that never before in History have a working class (the Chinese) allowed themselves to be so exploited without redress by a ruling Elite (the Chinese govt) that can tranship the goods accross an ocean to a Market (America) that wants to destroy its own economy through overconsumption of imported goods. When I was a boy, I decided to make yellowjacket soup. I learned that if I stood very still right at the mouth of the wasp nest, I could kill each wasp as it came out without the entire nest attacking me. By acting harmless, I could destroy the wasps at will, then make soup from them. This is the genius of Capitalists like Gates: by behaving like benevolent brainiacs, we the worker bees let them make soup from us. Sorry, my sympathies are with the Chinese workers and the Good 'Ol Boys and their kids who will all be in the poorhouse together.

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Chakotay]

"They have this mericratic way of picking people for these government posts where you rotate into the university and really think about state allocation of resources and the welfare of the country and then you rotate back into some bureaucratic position."

Sounds like he simply favours extreme centralization and consilidation. Monopolies and the like, cept here its government run monopolies, where the administrators are brought up thru their whole educational process to be readied for it.

Sounds more like serfdom in a certain sense.

Originally posted by The Division Bell
Gates is a genius, I admire him. Never expect the usual from him, a true entrepeneur of business. Another genius I admire is the CEO of Virgin mobile, that Australian guy.

not richard branson hes done loads of thing to expand the business

What Gates says may be true, the slant that benefit for consumers is a driving force is bunk.

Building the state is the Chinese purpose.

I am sure that the word "consumers" does not refer to western countries but China's own population. Also, businesses do not spend time suing each other, but competing in a free market. The stronger business, with the smartest management prevails. This is definitely far from comunist and oppressive as instead the media would like to depict China.

Peoples may have lesser benefits, but the quality of life in general is very good.

Before criticizing, you should go and check out China in person. Of course you can't expect to be treated well if you are from the US, but this is reciprocal IMHO.

China is a communist state with a capitalist economy. It has all the powers of a communist government. It is just prospering. This growth will slow, it is just impossible to sustain that kind of growth for over a decade.

Originally posted by benedict arnold
China is a communist state with a capitalist economy. It has all the powers of a communist government. It is just prospering. This growth will slow, it is just impossible to sustain that kind of growth for over a decade.

Wanna bet? Chinas got quite some stock of peasant farm workers, all itching to make some money, id say they've got cheap cost products covered at least another 20 years minimum. By which time it wont matter if growth comes back to standard levels, they'l be the biggest economic superpower by a very large margin.
(India wont be far behind either by then)

Does anyone think china's "new model" of captalism is little bit similar to the fascist model?

Originally posted by Havik
Does anyone think china's "new model" of captalism is little bit similar to the fascist model?

I see very little that makes it not the facsist model. Extreme nationalization of business and industry is going to look very similar to a communist approach to business and industry.

It looks like the main difference is in the way that they are choosing the people to head the businesses, thru something similiar to the way people got into civil service in old imperial china.

Personally I don't think this is anymore than Gates seeing a gigantic potential new market. Gates is a genius alright, but an economic genius. The slow crawl towards Capitalism in China is a potential gold mine to anyone able to supply much needed imports. China will never stop seeking to rival the economy of the US and to continue to do so they will need to be up to date with their technology. I think this is a dream come true to many Chinese leaders, this was a pbulic anouncement by Gates that he wishes to do business with China. To Gates it's a dream come true because he won't have to worry about government restrictions or competition from other tech companies since he will be dealing directly with the (still communist) Chinese government. On the upside though, Gates is still under the thumb of the US government stateside, if Microsoft builds nearly all of the new Chinese IT infrastructer we'll already now how it works.

I just hope China doesn't decide to run all their nuclear missile silos on Windows.

Gates is just drooling , looking how Chinese companies don't need an expensive lawyer department like microsoft to defend themselves against angry employees and competitors, just call your bribed local police and they will break a strike for you or throw an angry employee in jail for talking to the press



[edit on 30-1-2005 by Countermeasures]

Originally posted by Chakotay
This is the genius of Capitalists like Gates: by behaving like benevolent brainiacs, we the worker bees let them make soup from us. Sorry, my sympathies are with the Chinese workers and the Good 'Ol Boys and their kids who will all be in the poorhouse together.

[edit on 29-1-2005 by Chakotay]

Isn't that the beauty of Capitalism? Your father makes a living from Gates so that you will have a betteer life than he had and then you make a living for your son/daughter so that they will have better lives, and then one day a genius in your family will take the fruits of your harvest and build an empire on your work so that his kids will have the best of the best. The beauty of capitalism is that your father, mother, grandmother, grandfather have all been genius' but adapted to the life they were given and worked to give you a better life, hopeful that you could create a more prosperious and happy life for yourself through their deeds & hardwork. Capitalism isn't keeping the little guy down, its for giving the little guy a challenge. You can only fail if you don't try.

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This is not a NEW form of capitalism, it is an earlier stage which all the industrialized nations went through decades/century ago. They are going through it at an accellerated pace.

We industrialized nations are being dragged back some by it. Which may not be all bad. We need to re-educate ourselves on basic economics, Supply and demand. People are cheap in most of the world, We have to become much smarter or accept that there is going to be a backwards slide in our current industrialized standards and expectations.
.

Originally posted by Countermeasures
Gates is just drooling , looking how Chinese companies don't need an expensive lawyer department like microsoft to defend themselves against angry employees and competitors, just call your bribed local police and they will break a strike for you or throw an angry employee in jail for talking to the press

[edit on 30-1-2005 by Countermeasures]

China uses forced slave labor. That is the capitalist model that Gates is referring to. Totally free completely disposable labor. No minimum wage. No medical benifits. No retirement.

Originally posted by The Division Bell
Gates is a genius, I admire him. Never expect the usual from him, a true entrepeneur of business. Another genius I admire is the CEO of Virgin mobile, that Australian guy.

You mean that English guy??

Would Billy boy Gates have said that if he was still a consumer and not already rich?...Microshift are investing millions to expand it's market in India, China and other countries. Including giving $100 mill to India for aids research, whilst spending $400 mill to promote their product there.

(edited to add thumb, very important!)

[edit on 30/1/2005 by ANOK]