Turtles all the way down.
Let me be a boring economist for once (I am a boring economist) and let me talk about the Oxfam inequality report.
Inequality is, well. Bad. And it’s getting worse.
The billionaires are up (like 3x) since 2020. And the bottom 60% are getting poorer.
But why? What’s the cause? Oxfam thinks the billionaires (and their corporate “monopolies” ) themselves are *causing* inequality.
As both a futurist and an economist, it’s my job to look beyond the obvious reality and deep into cause and effect. And I have questions.
Firstly, size does not equal “monopoly”.
Size can be a problem, sure, but scale is not the same problem as monopoly (which is a real big problem). We have going-concern alternatives to the big boys and their (mostly unnecessary) toys. Even if we find them more cheap and convenient.
Secondly, are billionaires the cause or the result (and beneficiaries) of deeper drivers of inequality in our societies?
And to that end - what happened in 2020 (the reference year) to make them so much richer?
What else changed back then?
Well, for one thing, the global money game got manipulated with a whole great big enourmous pile of unprecedented cash - at a never before seen scale - printed by an actual legally defended monopoly that has since washed up in some pretty uneven (unequal) places. (I’m applying to do a PHD in these so called Cantillon Effects - they’re that wild).
(The reasons why this was even possible are also worth exploring by digging even deeper but that’s another investigation for another day.)
I’m sure you can think of some other possible and probable ancient and contemporary external deep drivers of inequality too.
The point is : if we want better strategy and better policy we need to separate positive analysis of what is from normative proposals of what should be. Misdiagnosis leads to poor recovery rates. And attack the symptoms as much as you like, it’s not going to cure the patient any more than palliative care.
Read more :
Gross inequality : https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-01/Davos%202024%20Executive%20Summary%20English.pdf
A coincidence? https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-most-important-money-statistic-ever-21acb12c27d1
A root of evil : https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/biflation.asp
Turtles all the way