Event: "Creative Capitalism" - Can It Meet the Needs of the World's Poor?

Submitted by Rob Katz on January 28, 2008 - 16:35.
Published in:
Event: "Creative Capitalism": Can It Meet the Needs of the World's Poor?

Date: Wednesday, January 30, 12:00 - 2:00

Location:
Hudson Institute - Betsy and Walter Stern Conference Center - 1015 15th Street, NW - Suite 600

Description:
Noting in his recent address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that "we have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier serve poorer people as well," Microsoft’s Bill Gates called for a new system of "creative capitalism" -- "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities."

Others are not so certain that development pursued by well-meaning experts working from the top down can ever make a dent in world poverty. Long-time critic of international aid WILLIAM EASTERLY, for instance, argues that: "We don’t know what actions achieve development, our advice and aid don’t make those actions happen even if we knew what they were, and we are not even sure who ‘we’ are that is supposed to achieve development."

Can Bill Gates’ "creative capitalism" make significant inroads against world poverty? That will be the question addressed by Easterly along with Urban Institute Senior Fellow EUGENE STEUERLE and ALLEN HAMMOND, vice president for innovation at the World Resources Institute. Hudson Institute's own CAROL ADELMAN, director of Hudson's Center for Global Prosperity, will moderate the discussion. Lunch will be served. Please join us!

For more information and to RSVP, see the events page.

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Working top down?
Submitted by jeff.mowatt on January 29, 2008 - 07:12.
Why should it be assumed that a business driven solution to world poverty would be of a top down variety? The P-CED critique of greed based capitalism which was delivered to President Clinton advocating a for profit approach against poverty certainly didn't include this. Far from it. The model was in fact first deployed in Russia as an alternative to the top-down approach of the Defense Enterprise Fund which preceeded it. Creative Capitalism as described by Gates may not make inroads, but this seems a much diluted interpretation of social business, which is by no means top-down.
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