Bill Gates has done a clever thing in previewing his address to the World Economic Forum through an interview with Robert A. Guth, which was reported on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal. Most importantly, to the extent the this really is a forum for discussing ideas, rather than just declaring them, he has chosen the perfect medium to give his audience a foretaste of his speech; and Guth has assisted by provided data points that can be summoned in the cause of both warranting and refuting Gates' assertions. Furthermore, this article seems to be resonating at a variety of Web sites, meaning that at least the blogosphere will have an opportunity to draw upon the same data as the Davos conferees. This does not level the playing field in Davos itself, but it at least lets us know that not everyone is subscribing to Condoleeza Rice's playbook.
In light of what I wrote this morning about "The Growth Illusion," I have to confess that this is one time when I am at least sympathetic to Gates' position. This may best be illustrated by Guth's account of how Gates responded to a critic whose credentials are far more formidable than my own:
To a degree, Mr. Gates's speech is an answer to critics of rich-country efforts to help the poor. One perennial critic is Mr. Easterly, the New York University professor, whose 2006 book, "The White Man's Burden," found little evidence of benefit from the $2.3 trillion given in foreign aid over the past five decades.
Mr. Gates said he hated the book. His feelings surfaced in January 2007 during a Davos panel discussion with Mr. Easterly, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and then-World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz. To a packed room of Davos attendees, Mr. Easterly noted that all the aid given to Africa over the years has failed to stimulate economic growth on the continent. Mr. Gates, his voice rising, snapped back that there are measures of success other than economic growth -- such as rising literacy rates or lives saved through smallpox vaccines. "I don't promise that when a kid lives it will cause a GNP increase," he quipped. "I think life has value."
Brushing off Mr. Gates's comments, Mr. Easterly responds, "The vested interests in aid are so powerful they resist change and they ignore criticism. It is so good to try to help the poor but there is this feeling that [philanthropists] should be immune from criticism."
The idea that Gates would start to get emotional over the proposition that there is more to the health of the global economy than economic growth gives me considerable comfort. I figure that, even if the Davos crowd sees Bono more for his entertainment value than for anything else, they certainly do not see Gates in that same light. On the other hand they may well accuse him of being a dabbler when it comes to economic theory, mixing the Adam Smith blend of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations with more contemporary sources (which may suffer from "business school press breeziness"), without cultivating a historical perspective on how things got the way they were through the literature between these two extremes. Also, I am not sure how well Gates can defend himself against charges of being a shallow reader, cherry-picking when he should be reflecting. I write all this not to criticize Gates but only to suggest that the position he is taking is not likely to be cheered by his audience the way basketball fans cheer a last-minute slam dunk.
However, we have to take what we can get. In this case that means hearing a sympathetic voice unlikely to be ignored. If Gates' talk sets the Davos crowd to buzzing, even if the buzzes are largely grumbles, he will have made a worthy contribution to how we think about global economic conditions.
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