"Another Kind of Creativity" - Landsburg

Tyler linked to a new blog entitled Creative Capitalism: A Conversation. It's a collective blog by economists for the most part as they blog and interact with an interview with Bill Gates (Microsoft Bill Gates, that is) on the concept of "creative capitalism," which is to say, corporations doing more philanthropic work. Gates, I think, is making the argument that corporations can do philanthropy better than states (more efficiently, but maybe more than that). The other bloggers take turns responding to this interview.

So far, I've only skimmed Richard Posner and Ed Glaeser's response, and read Steven Landsburg's in its entirety. I liked Landsburg's piece, and here was one paragraph that I thought captured much of what he was saying in response to Gates (who I've not read yet):

Bottom line re eradicating poverty: Capitalism is indispensable; health and education measures can help. If creative capitalism discourages the accumulation of capital ---either directly, or, as Bill points out, by dampening enthusiasm for traditional capitalism---then it’s surely counterproductive.

So put Landsburg strictly in the Milton Friedman camp, which sees the maximization of profits as the only moral responsibility of the firm. He's not the only person on the list who takes that position - Posner seemed to take a similar one, based on my skimming. I look forward to reading more of these. It will ultimately be collected into a volume, according to Tyler, making this the first academic blog conference (right?). Or at least one of the first. Pretty interesting model, and I hope it catches on. If they do publish it, though, what will they do with the comments?