Philanthrocapitalism
Book: Philanthrocapitalism. by Matthew Bishop & Michael Green.
URL = http://www.philanthrocapitalism.net/
Description
"It chronicles a new generation of "social investors" that is using big-business-style strategies and “expects results and accountability to match”. The philanthrocapitalists, a web of wealthy, motivated donors who have “set out to change the world” include Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, George Soros, Angelina Jolie, and Bono, among others.
The project of philanthrocapitalism is not incoherent, and the way they work is often transparent and well organized. The Gates Foundation, for example, seems to bevery professionally run. My doubts concern the assumptions that underly the philanthrocapitalists' key aim, which is to provide capital to the large number of informal micro-enterprises that account for nearly half of GDP in low income countries (compared to just 13 percent in rich countries). The propositon is that low-income countries typically suffer from a "missing middle" in which “poor access to inputs” leaves “a massive economic gap in small and medium-sized enterprises.”
The "missing middle" is a real enough problem - but it won't, for me, best be filled by the imposition of a capital-intensive and growth-oriented economy – the economy, in other words, that we have now." (http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2009/07/from_philanthro.php)