Bill Gates is on a mission. A big mission -- one that would remake the world economy as (some of us) know it. His goal, to create a kinder, creative capitalism that puts its energy into improving the lives of the poor, rather than the balance sheets of corporations.

Coming from a multi-billionaire, that's awfully precious thinking. But, because he is a multi-billionaire, Gates cannot be ignored. Though, in many ways he should, especially when he posits a new world order based more upon sentiment than reality:

Mr. Gates said that he has grown impatient with the shortcomings of capitalism. He said he has seen those failings first-hand on trips for Microsoft to places like the South African slum of Soweto, and discussed them with dozens of experts on disease and poverty. He has voraciously read about those failings in books that propose new approaches to narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

In particular, he said, he's troubled that advances in technology, health care and education tend to help the rich and bypass the poor. "The rate of improvement for the third that is better off is pretty rapid," he said. "The part that's unsatisfactory is for the bottom third -- two billion of six billion."

One can safely assume that he was not flying coach on those trips for Microsoft. But what of the charge that capitalism, with all the advances it has brought to the first world, has failed to extend any real benefit to the third world?

There is something to it, but not necessarily along the lines Gates would have us believe.

Market forces work best when they are coupled with free political systems. The first world is rich, and getting richer, because it has a history of democratic institutions which, generally, defend the concepts of individual rights -- particularly property rights. That's not to say that some unfree societies cannot reap many of the benefits of capitalism. Communist China is a prime example of this. But even here, there are limits. With nearly 300 million people still earning less than a dollar a day, China's boom has been as centralized as its political system. The two are in conflict and eventually, one will have to give.

But in many poor nations, the problem is that not only are the societies unfree, their economies are in chains as well. Add to that the lack of any real civil society, and it's little wonder that much of the world remains poor, while we seem to get richer.

But we are partly to blame for their problems. As noted in the Journal piece:

To a degree, Mr. Gates's speech is an answer to critics of rich-country efforts to help the poor. One perennial critic is Mr. Easterly, the New York University professor, whose 2006 book, "The White Man's Burden," found little evidence of benefit from the $2.3 trillion given in foreign aid over the past five decades.

Mr. Gates said he hated the book. His feelings surfaced in January 2007 during a Davos panel discussion with Mr. Easterly, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and then-World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz. To a packed room of Davos attendees, Mr. Easterly noted that all the aid given to Africa over the years has failed to stimulate economic growth on the continent. Mr. Gates, his voice rising, snapped back that there are measures of success other than economic growth -- such as rising literacy rates or lives saved through smallpox vaccines. "I don't promise that when a kid lives it will cause a GNP increase," he quipped. "I think life has value."

Brushing off Mr. Gates's comments, Mr. Easterly responds, "The vested interests in aid are so powerful they resist change and they ignore criticism. It is so good to try to help the poor but there is this feeling that [philanthropists] should be immune from criticism."

The aid we have poured into poor nations has, to some degree, fostered a culture of dependence. Knowing that your rich Uncle, whom you despise, will still send you big checks in spite of your behavior isn't healthy. And yet we do it, and will continue to do it, because it's in our "interest."

Some of those interests were bred during the Cold War. We used the soft power of money to buy friends in an attempt to keep the Russians at bay. That often meant turning a blind eye to the dictators, thieves and be-ribboned sociopaths in charge. It may have kept the communists away, but such aid rarely helped the people who needed it most.

And even today, we find new ways to keep the poor in their place. Trade restrictions that keep out inexpensive grain, textiles, biofuels...you name it...all undercut the positive power of the market. And why do we do it? To "protect" American jobs. We might do that, to a degree, but in the process, we close our markets to those who are eager to compete in it to better their own lives (and by extension our own -- trade is, after all, a two-way street).

We also do it by restricting the flow of people across borders. Those poor huddled masses make for fine poetry, but by God, they better not set foot in Virginia, because they will take our jobs (and give us leprosy, or TB but most often, the vapors). The anti-foreign bias lives, and thrives, here at home. It's effects reach across the globe.

I suggest that if Mr. Gates really wants to lift the world's poor out of their misery that he apply his considerable resources and talents to expanding the reach of free markets at home and abroad. He can begin with assailing the barriers placed on commerce. He can then move to see that free societies -- with functioning, free political systems -- become the norm across the globe.

If he can make progress on these two fronts, he will have made a huge contribution to the health and wealth of all peoples. And if, as he says, he has closely studied Adam Smith he will learn one of Smith's greatest lessons: How good comes from one man pursuing his own ends...

By pursuing his own interests he frequently promotes that of the society more effectively than he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good.