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Monday, 17 January 2011

JOURNAL: The Winner Take Most Economy

Cynthia Freeland has an excellent article called "The Rise of the New Global Elite" in the Atlantic.  It explores the yawning gulf between the interests of this global economic elite and ours and the backlash that is forming.   Here's an expansion of her drivers of the winner take most economy.  They are, in order of onset:

  1. Financialization.  Extreme economic leverage (from derivatives to debt).  The rise of transactional morality.
  2. Globalization.  Wage, regulatory, and tax arbitrage.  The collapse of moral standards via relativism.  A willingness to enable mercantilists (China/Japan/Germany).
  3. Internetization.   Globally portable productivity.  Network effects that lock-in success.  Extreme technological leverage. 

In short, these drivers have made it possible to concentrate wealth like never before over the past 30 years (and it's accelerating).  The problem with this isn't that some people have made lots of money.  The problem is that it has been systemically destructive and we ALL are going to pay a very high price for it.

Posted at 01:53 PM |

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