Economic worries and the global elite. By Chrystia Freeland. Reuters, June 17, 2013.
The age of global plutocracy: Chrystia Freeland at TEDGlobal 2013. By Karen Eng. TED Blog, June 12, 2013.
Freeland:
Disclosure
alert: I was a speaker, too. I talked about my chief obsession, soaring global
income inequality, particularly at the very top of the pyramid, and the
uncomfortable fact that the same forces that are enriching the global
super-elite are hollowing out the middle class in the Western developed
economies. Making capitalism work for everyone, and not just the plutocrats, I
argued, is our most pressing political and economic problem.
Taken
together, and given the gilded venue, all of these comments amount to a
significant shift in tone. Charlie Robertson, the global chief economist for
Renaissance Capital, the Russian-based investment bank, was moved to post on
Twitter, in reaction to the TED lineup, that the “intellectual ascendancy of
neo-liberalism since 70s may be in retreat.”
That is
probably going too far. But we do seem to be at a turning point, or the
beginning of one. Judging by this week in Edinburgh, even the winners in the
global economy are beginning to realize that there are a lot of losers, too,
and that that’s a problem. You might see that as too little too late; you might
also see it as, at long last, a start.
