[R-G] Bill Gates, Philanthropy, and Social Engineering?

[Anthony Fenton]

Bill Gates, Philanthropy, and Social Engineering? (Part 1 of 3)

July 16, 2008 By Michael Barker
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18198

Like many of the world's richest businessmen Bill Gates believes in a  
special form of democracy, otherwise known as plutocracy, that is,  
"socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor". Following in the  
footsteps of the robber barons, like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew  
Carnegie, who founded two of America's most influential liberal  
foundations (e.g. the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie  
Corporation), Gates, like most capitalists, relies upon the government  
to help regulate and protect his business interests from competition,  
but is less keen on the idea of a government that acts to redistribute  
wealth to the wider populous. Dean Baker surmises this idea when he  
writes that Bill Gates is after all "one of the heroes of the  
conservative nanny state." In the minds of such massively powerful  
would-be capitalists, the State is merely a tool to be harnessed for  
profit maximization, and they themselves, the ones who have acquired  
their wealth by exploiting and manipulating the economic system then  
take it upon their own shoulders to help relieve global inequality and  
escalating poverty - the modern day's white man's burden. As one might  
expect, the definitions of the appropriate solutions to the capitalist- 
driven inequality that are generated by the world's most successful  
capitalists neglect to seriously challenge the primary driver of  
global poverty, capitalism. For the most part the incompatibility of  
democracy and capitalism remains anathema to all, instead liberal  
philanthropists industriously fund all manner of ‘solutions' that help  
provide a much needed outlet valve for rising resistance and dissent,  
while still enabling business-as-usual, albeit with a band-aid stuck  
over some of the most glaring inequities.

With huge government-aided financial empires resting in the hands of a  
small power elite, the ability of the richest individual  
philanthropists to shape global society is increasing all the time,  
while the power of governments to influence society is being  
continuously undermined by many of the powerful philanthropists. This  
situation is problematic on a number of levels least of not which is  
that existing theories of democratic governance find no legitimate  
role for liberal philanthropists acting as extra-constitutional  
planners. Democratic governments rely on taxes to stabilize existing  
structures of governance; however, by exploiting specifically designed  
legislation, billionaire capitalists are able to create massive tax- 
free endowments to satisfy their own particular whims or interests,  
but not necessarily those of the wider public. This process in effect  
means that vast amounts of money is regularly ‘stolen' from the  
democratic citizenry, whereupon is redistributed by unaccountable  
elites, who then cynically use this display of generosity to win over  
more supporters to free-market principles that they themselves do  
their utmost to protect themselves.

Bill Gates' Microsoft Corporation and his associated liberal  
foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - which is the  
largest of its kind in the world - are only one of the more visible  
displays of capitalisms hypocrisy. However, to date within the  
scholarly literature no attention has been paid to the activities of  
this powerful philanthropist, thus this article will provide the first  
critical overview of Bill Gates' global social engineering. Given the  
paucity of studies that have incorporated critiques of liberal  
philanthropy many readers may not be familiar with the numerous  
critiques of liberal philanthropy, however, these will not be reviewed  
here as I have reviewed this literature elsewhere.[1] Instead using a  
Gramscian conceptual framework, supported by Joan Roelofs critical  
insights into the democracy manipulating activities of liberal  
foundations, this article will concentrate on providing much needed  
historical context to Bill Gates' philanthropy. Subsequently, the  
article will provide a brief overview of the business that generated  
Bill Gates' fortune, the Microsoft Corporation, and will then examine  
some of the people and projects that are links to his global  
philanthropic activities.

Capitalists cum Philanthropists: the roots of Gates' philanthropy

At this present historical juncture, neoclassical free-market economic  
doctrines - in theory at least - are the favored means of promoting  
capitalism by business and political elites. Unfortunately, in many  
respects this neoliberal dogma has been adopted, arguably against  
their own best interests, by a sizable proportion of the citizenry of  
the world's most powerful countries (e.g. in the United States and  
UK). This widespread internalization (but not necessarily acceptance)  
by the broader populous of the economic theories that consolidate  
capitalist hegemony over the global market did not happen naturally,  
but actually required a massive ongoing propaganda campaign to embed  
itself in the masses minds. The contours of this propaganda offensive  
have been well described by Alex Carey who fittingly observed that:  
"The twentieth century has been characterised by three developments of  
great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of  
corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of  
protecting corporate power against democracy."

There are many reasons why corporate giants engage in liberal  
philanthropic endeavors: one is to have a direct influence on  
political decisions through what has been termed political  
philanthropy,[2] but another important reason is that such charitable  
efforts help cultivate a positive image in the publics' mind that  
serves to deflect often much warranted criticism, while also helping  
them expand their market share. However, although liberal foundations  
like the Gates Foundation may engage in such ostensibly progressive  
activities this does not mean that the capitalist enterprises from  
which their endowments arise (i.e. Microsoft) refrain from engaging in  
normal antidemocratic business practices. So while the Gates  
Foundation directs some of its resources to progressive grassroots  
initiatives, its corporate benefactor actually works to create fake  
grassroots organizations (otherwise known as astroturf groups) to  
actively lobby through covert means to protect corporate power.

For instance, in 1999 Microsoft helped found a corporate front group  
called Americans for Technology Leadership - a group which describes  
its role as being "dedicated to limiting government regulation of  
technology and fostering competitive market solutions to public policy  
issues affecting the technology industry." In 2001, Joseph Menn and  
Edmund Sanders alleged that Americans for Technology Leadership  
orchestrated a "nationwide campaign to create the impression of a  
surging grass-roots movement" to help defend Microsoft from monopoly  
charges. The founder of this front group, Jonathan Zuck, also created  
another libertarian group in 1998 called the Association for  
Competitive Technology, a group which was part sponsored by Microsoft  
to fight against the anti-trust actions being pursued against  
Microsoft in the United States. Such antidemocratic campaigns waged  
via front groups and astroturf organizations, however, were just one  
part of Microsoft's democratic manipulations: this is because as Greg  
Miller and Leslie Helm demonstrated (in 1998), this was just one part  
of a program that Microsoft and PR giant Edelman had been planning as  
part of a "massive media campaign designed to influence state  
investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public  
support for the company."[3] None of this should be surprising because  
in 1995 it was also revealed how Microsoft were using "consultants to  
generate computer analyses of reporters' articles, enlist industry  
sources to critique writers they know and - less frequently - provide  
investigative peeks into journalists private lives". Amongst the rare  
spate of critical articles surfacing in the late 1990s, to add insult  
on injury it was also shown that Microsoft had also made a $380,000  
contribution to the conservative corporate-funded astroturf group  
Citizens for a Sound Economy (now known as FreedomWorks).[4]  
Unfortunately, these examples only represent the tip of the iceberg of  
Microsoft's democracy manipulating activities, as the corporate media  
while able to make occasional critical enquiries into corporate  
misdemeanors can hardly be relied upon to act as a corporate watchdog.

Like what were formerly known as the "big three" liberal foundations -  
the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller  
Foundation - whom exhibited a long history of working closely with the  
US government's Central Intelligence Agency, Microsoft also has its  
own ties to the shadowy intelligence community. Thus in the  
aforementioned astroturf campaign involving Americans for Technology  
Leadership, another group that worked alongside this coalition on  
Microsoft's behalf was a group called Citizens Against Government  
Waste. This anti-regulation group was founded in 1984 by syndicated  
columnist Jack Anderson and the late J. Peter Grace (1913-1995);  
however, Grace's role in creating this group is particularly  
noteworthy as he had formerly chaired the AFL-CIO's American Institute  
for Free Labor Development (or Solidarity Center), a group that has a  
long history of working closely with the CIA and the National  
Endowment for Democracy to promote the US's imperial interests  
overseas. Of course, Grace who died in 1995 was not part of the  
Microsoft campaign, but the point here is to merely indicate the types  
of conservative groups that Microsoft associates with. Moreover, in  
1999 it was revealed that Microsoft has direct ties to the  
intelligence community as "special access codes for use by the U.S.  
National Security Agency (NSA) ha[d] been secretly built into all  
versions of the Windows operating system".

These CIA-connections should be expected as one of Microsoft's main  
clients is after all the Pentagon. Furthermore, Microsoft's board of  
directors itself is also home to a key member of the ‘defense'  
establishment, as in November 2003 Charles Noski joined their board.  
Shortly thereafter, in December 2003, Noski joined the Northrop  
Grumman Corporation - which happens to be the third largest arms  
manufacturer in the world - as their corporate vice president, a  
position he retained until March 2005 (he also served on their board  
of directors during these years). Another Microsoft director, James  
Cash, Jr., also serves on the board of General Electric, yet another  
major military contractor; while Noski also serves as a director of  
the Rockefeller-linked investment banking giant, Morgan Stanley, and  
fellow Microsoft board member Dina Dublon is the former chief  
financial officer for the Rockefellers' financial services company  
JPMorgan Chase.

Finally last but not least the CEO of Microsoft, Steven Ballmer, who  
has served in this position since 2000, has links to another  
controversial group called the Jewish National Fund (JNF). Here he  
serves on their World Chairman's Council, a council that is composed  
of a "select group of people who have demonstrated an enduring  
commitment to Israel and JNF" by donating over $1 million. This group  
was formed in 1901, and is widely considered to be an environmental  
organization, which as their website notes, has "planted over 240  
million trees, built over 180 dams and reservoirs, developed over  
250,000 acres of land, created more than 1,000 parks throughout Israel  
and educated students around the world about Israel and the  
environment." However, this benign sounding apolitical description  
warrants closer scrutiny when it is known that JNF's president,  
Stanley Chesley, also serves on the executive committee of the  
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Indeed, although "throughout  
the Jewish world the JNF is seen as a highly responsible ecological  
agency" in actual fact, "JNF was the principal Zionist tool for the  
colonization of Palestine". In a recent interview Illan Pappe put it  
simply: JNF is simply a "colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing."[5]  
This is a very controversial link for a corporation that created the  
Gates Foundation: however, having provided a critical overview of the  
corporation that allowed Bill Gates' philanthropic work to thrive, the  
following part of this article will introduce some of the people and  
projects that have been supported by the various Gates foundations.


Michael Barker has just submitted his doctoral thesis, and is  
currently co-editing a book with Daniel Faber and Joan Roelofs that  
will critically evaluate the influence of philanthropic foundations on  
the public sphere. This article was presented as a refereed paper at  
the Australasian Political Science Association conference.

Notes

[1] Michael Barker 2008. 'The liberal foundations of environmentalism:  
revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford connection.' Capitalism Nature  
Socialism, 19, 2, 15-42; Michael Barker 2008. 'The liberal foundations  
of media reform? Creating sustainable funding opportunities for  
radical media reform.' Global Media Journal.

[2] Sims estimated that the ‘corporate outlay on political  
philanthropy in the 2000 election cycle [in the US] was... a minimum  
of $1-2 billion. This compares to roughly $200 million on PAC  
contributions and $400 million on soft money contributions" (pp. 
167-8). Grechen Sims 2003. Rethinking the political power of American  
business: the role of corporate social responsibility. Unpublished PhD  
Thesis: Stanford University. (See related article.)

[3] Greg Miller and Leslie Helm 1998. 'Microsoft Tries to Orchestrate  
Public Support.' Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1998, p. A1.

[4] Microsoft representative, Thomas Hartocollis, serves on the board  
of directors of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship  
- a group that is funded by various conservative foundations and to  
teach children about the benefits of capitalism.

[5] Illan Pappe writes that: "The true mission of the JNF, has been to  
conceal [the] visible remnants of Palestine not by only the trees it  
has planted over them, but also by the narratives it has created to  
deny their existence." JNF's ‘ecological' sites "do not so much  
commemorate history as seek to totally erase it". Ilan Pappe 2006.  
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: Oneworld, pp.228-9, 17.