Bill Gates: ‘The Private Sector Is Inept’–Only Socialism Can Save Our Planet

Bill Gates may well be one of the richest men in the world, a man who acquired his fortune as a direct result of the private sector and the capitalist way, but in a recent interview with the Atlantic magazine, Gates says the only hope for saving the planet from climate change lies in socialism.

Gates said the technologies needed to guarantee that the planet remains capable of sustaining life can only be developed by governments because “the private sector is in general inept.” Gates also remarked:

“Yes, the government will be somewhat inept. But the private sector is in general inept. How many companies do venture capitalists invest in that go poorly? By far most of them.”

The founder of Microsoft also addressed the issue of how improbable it is that anything can be accomplished in the United States with Congress and the White House in the hands of competing political parties:

“If you’re not bringing math skills to the problem, then representative democracy is a problem. “When people viewed cancer as a problem, the U.S. government—and it’s a huge favor to the world—declared a war on cancer, and now we fund all health research at about $30 billion a year, of which about $5 billion goes to cancer. We got serious and did a lot of R&D, and then we got the private sector involved in taking that R&D and building breakthrough drugs.”

And Gates added that every government on Earth needs to bring a determined focus to the issue of climate change and the myriad of problems it is causing, from hunger to warfare:

“Realistically, we may not get more than a doubling in government funding of energy R&D—but I would love to see a tripling, to $18 billion a year from the U.S. government to fund basic research alone.”

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.

 

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