Bill Gates as Social Engineer: Introducing the World's Largest Liberal Philanthropist

Recent critical scholarship has drawn attention to the antidemocratic influence of conservative philanthropists on the evolution of global civil society, but few researchers have focused on the similarly antidemocratic trends that have resulted from the influence of Left- leaning capitalist funders. Indeed while many people may think that the pro-free market doctrine of Right leaning philanthropoids may receive better funding than liberal (progressive) foundations this is not necessarily the case. Instead, the Right has simply acted with more cohesion, and consciously worked at influencing policy makers and politicians at an ideological level, while the Left has adopted a more haphazard reactive approach to tempering the excesses of our capitalist society. In most cases researchers have also tended to assume that liberal funders have only had noble (progressive) intentions to strengthen democracy, and while this may be true to a point, this paper will demonstrate that this charity is ultimately given to sustain capitalism (albeit a less harsh version compared to that proposed by their fellow Right-wing philanthropists). This paper will furnish a detailed overview of the Bill Gates' philanthropic foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates foundation is currently the largest liberal foundation in the world, and distributes over $2 billion worth of grants a year to ostensibly progressive causes. By providing the first comprehensive outline of the contours of the people and groups associated with the Gates Foundations work, this paper will critically investigate Bill Gates role as a global social engineer. It is hoped that by delineating the Gates Foundations massive yet so far undocumented impact on global civil society, that critical scholars will begin to think more seriously about how alternative more democratic funding systems for progressive activism and research might be launched and sustained in the future.