The U.S.-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told me that his firm’s investment committee often discusses the question of who wins and who loses in today’s economy. In a recent internal debate, he said, one of his senior colleagues had argued that the hollowing-out of the American middle class didn’t really matter. “His point was that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade,” the CEO recalled.I heard a similar sentiment from the Taiwanese-born, 30-something CFO of a U.S. Internet company. A gentle, unpretentious man who went from public school to Harvard, he’s nonetheless not terribly sympathetic to the complaints of the American middle class. “We demand a higher paycheck than the rest of the world,” he told me. “So if you’re going to demand 10 times the paycheck, you need to deliver 10 times the value. It sounds harsh, but maybe people in the middle class need to decide to take a pay cut.”
These elites don't think in terms of countries; they think in terms of capital flows, business opportunities, and global markets. They do not think of people, however, except in terms of Randianism. People to them have no intrinsic worth or rights; as such, they don't mean much. Instead, the elite view people only by what they can produce. It is the ultimate, and only, metric they use.
Going forward, the more global stateless elites there are, and the more powerful they become, the more the companies they control will begin to supplant national governments, both in influence and relevance. And the less relevant government of the people, by the people and for the people will become.
The ultra-rich. They're hard workers. They're innovators. They're businessmen. And they're no friends of yours.
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