The Problem With Bill Gates and Other Corporate Philanthropists

The scenes are nightmarish: clogged public toilets running over and into streams, latrines so appalling that people piss in the streets to avoid the stench. There is no arguing that the slums, favelas, and shanty-towns of the "developing world," part of our planet, need better toilets and systems of sanitation. The issue is one example of complicated challenges facing all of us. Bill Gates threw his economic muscle into solving this problem by opening a competition to build a better toilet, one that would use less water, not need an infrastructure of sewage pipes to move the waste to treatment plants. And people responded. The winning toilets cost between $50k and $500 each. Poor countries can't quite afford such things. That's the problem; the solution doesn't go far enough to address political and economic institutions. The system that created that massive poverty, dislocation, environmental crisis, and sanitation problem is the same system that made Bill Gates a billionaire; his solution does nothing to restructure the system, to level the playing field, to lift people up and out of squalor. And his solution is primarily technological -- gadgets -- that require massive engineering and skilled workers and spare parts to maintain. His solution doesn't empower people living in poverty, doesn't equip them to care for the toilets he might provide. Yes, doing something is better than doing nothing, and, for that, my hat is off to Bill and his projects, but his solution is not the one that's going to save us, to relieve the misery of the planet's underclasses. Technology is part of a comprehensive response, for sure, but only part, and the hype and fanfare around techno-fixes implies that they are all that's necessary. That's a problem. It's not an either/or, but more of a both/and: both technology and socio-political change. That will require some real work, real innovation that goes beyond merely technical, innovation that overhauls the system that created such abject misery and inequity.