Today I read this article http://www.nyteknik.se/art/46902 published 060906 with the title GATES FOREVER. (Ny Teknik is "Sweden’s Larges Technical News Magazine" according to their homepage and happens to be a magazine my dad reads and refers to on an every-week basis.) Here comes a translated and a little abbreviated English version of historian Lars Ilshammar's article.
____________________________________________________________________

Can the wealthiest man on earth also be the nicest? Bill Gates is systematically giving potions of his astronomical wealth, which is greater than the GNP of many countries in the world, away to different projects to fight diphtheria, tetanus, measles, TBC, polio, whooping cough, malaria and HIV and the likes. He even demands of the scientists that receive his money for research that they share their results with others instead of competing with them.

So now 'everyone' loves the geeky billionaire from Seattle that we not so long ago depicted as a greedy capitalist that made an insane amount of money making us dependent on his ill functioning software. Capitalism shows a nice face as opposed to the old face of ordinary greediness and ruthlessness - and Gates is all of a sudden an exemplary citizen.

So, what’s up? Did his bad conscious catch up with him or did he realize that he wouldn’t be able to spend it all? Or is it just an investment in a merchandize that is so expensive that it's not even available on the market. With a gigantic donation one can acquire what's not for sale - the possibility to rewrite ones own history. Anyone in doubt can compare what is written about the philanthropic ‘Saint’ Bill and what was written about greedy Gates, lord of the dark, a couple of years ago. What more, as a bonus he's making himself immortal.

The person that becomes the richest man on earth turning people in to slaves under the rule of windows is just another imperia-builder and will soon be forgotten. But the person that gives more than anyone else fighting disease and improving world health will be remembered forever, side by side with Rockefeller and Nobel.

So whatever the purpose: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has once more made a really good investment.
____________________________________________________________________

My comment:

First of all I don’t know much about in what way Gates acquired his fortune - and I’m not out to judging him or anyone else. BUT, in general it seems to me that people use the system to their advantage and then when they have power/wealth they give away what they don’t need constructing a ‘nice guy’ image of themselves. Sure it’s better than staying poor, complaining about it and not trying to do anything to change the situation OR getting filthy rich and use the money to build an army and sponsor child prostitution. BUT neither would I want to say that if you can get rich without breaking the law in your country you’re automatically mister nice guy. You can still have gotten to where you are by using peoples weaknesses, which is the case in areas like prostitution, betting, alcohol, tobacco, drugs – or anywhere where you abuse you power over people and their needs to obtain what you want. It’s like if I would make someone trip and hurt themselves by spreading pebbles on the boardwalk and them come to their ‘rescue’ helping the person up and caring for its wounds. That would not make me mister nice guy now would it!

What I’m getting at is that I’m so sick of seeing people taking with one hand and giving with the other, destroying with one hand and building with the other. And in a lot of cases the first is doing more work than the other. On a small scale – people flying hither and dither across the world, consuming and consuming whatever and then scolding their, or other peoples kids, for throwing a piece of paper on the ground. On a big scale – the five permanent members of the UN Security counsel, France, Russia, China, the UK and the US, being responsible for 88% of the export of conventional weapons in the world (La Farola September 2006). I don’t want to be the pessimist here but we have to try and see things in a wider perspective, the sum of our actions. Of course we should always encourage good initiatives and intentions but not stop at that. To finish this of and get something else done today “Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.” – Albert Einstein