![]() ![]() Even as the gap between those at the very top and rest has increased, those at the top are more likely now to be self-made than they were 30 years ago. One of the things that I write about, which I think is a really important factor in what’s going on and that really shapes how the plutocrats think of themselves and their relationship to everybody else, is the fact that the 0.1% is a meritocracy. What makes plutocracy different from meritocracy? Why is it not “fair?” Her research, which culminated in the book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, is what Freeland explains in today’s talk. So what is global plutocracy? Why is it happening now? How is it hurting our economies? And what can we do to stop it? The TED Blog called Freeland to discuss what the future of 21st century capitalism might look like, and to talk to her about her recent decision to run for a seat in Canada’s Parliament. All of those pieces coming together made me believe that this was a hugely important phenomenon in the world economy and that it wasn’t being written about enough.” “They don’t really know about what’s happening in business, but it is business people who are the going to be at the top of the income distribution. “I think the people who are focused on income inequality tend not to be the people who focus on business,” she says, answering the question now. In the pre-Occupy Wall Street days, she began to wonder: why is no one surfacing this? It was then that Freeland began really studying this economic climate, making connections and dissecting why so much of the economic action was happening at the very top tier. ![]() As she describes, these “American masters of the universe” were thriving amidst growing income inequality. So when she moved to New York City in 2010, she was surprised to notice how similar the “titans of finance,” as Tom Wolfe dubs them, were to the Russian oligarchs in that they’d shaken off the demands of democratic capitalism and were succeeding in globalized industries that did very little to help the economy as a whole. Freeland became interested in plutocracy after watching “the collapse of communism and the rise of capitalism in its stead in the former Soviet Union.” She saw how emerging billionaires there were “breaking out of their communist shackles” and rising to the top. In today’s talk, given at TEDGlobal 2013, Freeland tackles the growing global plutocracy, looking at how 21 st century democratic capitalism is making the rich richer while pulling up the ladder so that the middle and working class aren’t able to follow suit. As a journalist, she examines how money shapes society, impacts politics and essentially makes the world go ‘round. Chrystia Freeland writes about the power of money.
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