Tony Benn and Bill Gates

Tony Benn was a sane Brit whose existence was a solace to me during the years that I lived in the UK. There was an article in The Guardian after his death yesterday in which there were several representative quotes, one of which was this:

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?” If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

The reference there to how we can protect ourselves against Bill Gates is particularly important to me, not just because I despise Microsoft's manipulative methods and Gates' social darwinist, competitive, standardist, elitist, cocksure, influence on education. What concerns me most is that there is nothing we can do to mitigate his influence, “to get rid of” him, in Benn's words.

I'm not alone (see the Mercola article) in my disbelief in the goodness of philanthrocapitalists, and Gates in particular. It's obvious that the philanthrocapitalists will never do anything in opposition to predatory capitalism or business's interests. The philanthropocapitalism thing allows them to cover up their own consciences, to deceive others about the hidden costs of greed, to avoid taxes and to acquire leverage and lobbying power, and to publicize their supposed good intentions when actually they probably are the most destructive people on the planet.

Fundamentalist Christianist churches take the same same self-righteous, hypo-critical attitude and advantages from their activities.

I can easily imagine some one saying to me, for example, that the billions Gates has “given” to support genetically engineered crops to feed many people, and what have I done?

But it may well be that genetically engineered crops are harming us now, and will harm us worse in the end.

And as for the “What have you done?” retort, the remarks that Christ made, about the widow giving her two mites being far more than what the wealthy give, seem simply irrefutable to me.