So far, he may merely be suffering from a very bad case of cognitive dissonance. And he has not done anything that would undermine the interests of his class (unlike FDR, who as Krugman points out in an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times, would have failed the modern test of authenticity, since he continued to live like the rich man he was, but implemented policies that worked against his economic interests).

However, I am also reminded of a New Republic book review by Omer Bartok titled “The Fragility of Goodness: Why Bulgaria’s Jews Survived the Holocaust”:

But the lesson is not quite so simple or so edifying. For we also learn from such instances that the difference between virtue and vice is far less radical than we would like to believe. Sometimes the most effective kind of goodness – I mean the practical kind, the kind that can actually save lives and not merely alleviate the conscience of the protagonists – is carried out by those who have already compromised themselves with evil, those who are members of the very organizations that have set ball rolling toward the abyss. Hence a strange and frustrating contradiction: that absolute goodness is often surprisingly ineffective, while compromised, splintered and ambiguous goodness, one that is touched and stained by evil, is the only kind that may set limits to mass murder. And while absolute evil is indeed defined by its consistent one-dimensionality, this more mundane sort of wickedness, the most prevalent sort, contains within itself also seeds of goodness that may be stimulated and encouraged by the example of the few dwellers of these nether regions who may have come to recognize their own moral potential.

Gates is nothing but a dishonest gasbag. He revealed his true motivation in the passage you quoted when he he said “If we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world….
“

Gates is scumbag, pure and simple. This quotation of Gates’ would have been far more impressive if his underlying motivation and objectives weren’t already clear. Gates has worked to monopolize much of the internet market through Microsoft by unethical, if not illegal practices. To this day Gates is doing everything possible to depress the wages of high-tech American workers, by lobbying to Congress to remove the caps on H1B visas.

unlawflcombatnt

Economic Populist Forum