There's an inherent tension in the world with regards to wealth and power distribution.
I don't think it's a new thing, as according to history, when the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, social upheavals and revolutionary movements tend to happen.
But I also think that this time may be different, in the sense that there are more capable forces at play compared to previous historical periods.
What I mean by "capable forces" here is obviously the rapid advancement that technology in general has brought to most aspects of modern life.
Capable forces could also be understood as the different parties at play who've all gathered to influence the direction at which society evolves.
There's an element of sophistication in how various stakeholders, i.e tech companies, governments, civil society organizations etc. are working on shaping the future.
Virtual Vault
For me, it's very noticeable that wealth concentration has taken on a new dimension, in that modern wealth accumulation operates at a scale and speed that would be unimaginable even a century ago.
For example, a tech company CEO has seen their net worth fluctuate by billions in a single day, which is more than the entire GDP of some historical empires.
Another example of a different angle is it took John D. Rockefeller, America's first billionaire, several decades to build his fortune in oil.
In contrast, Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire in his early 20s, and needless to say, SBF from FTX briefly amassed a fortune of $26 billion by age 29 before its spectacular collapse.
Part of the reason has to do with the nature of this wealth. You could walk through Rockefeller's oil fields and count the barrels, touch the machinery, see the workers, traditional wealth was more or less tangible and also anchored to real-world assets and infrastructure, which means less volatility.
Obviously, this new nature of wealth exists primarily in digital form. It is the digital world itself that facilitates the creation of this type of wealth, built on digital assets, intellectual property, and complex financial instruments.
So there's an element of abstraction too, more powerful and elusive to grasp by traditional economic frameworks.
Speaking of abstraction, it's easier to shape public discourse and policy decisions in a way that expands way beyond what was possible in the industrial age. By default, it's not that hard to influence how people think subconsciously and act based on this, and also on a global level.
Democratized And Concentrated
Of course, it'll be grossly unfair to not mention that all of these things weren't happening during previous eras of wealth concentration and technological change.
The point being made or rather the difference is it wasn't on this scale and magnitude as it is today.
So, when they say we're living in an exponential age, it's good to also ponder a bit on the not so good aspects of this.
Modern people are caught between a hard rock, so to speak.
Despite the relative easiness of modernity, the average person has less control over the forces shaping their economic destiny and many find themselves more vulnerable to systemic risks they can barely comprehend.
Sure, anyone can trade stocks/crypto coins from their phone or launch a digital business from their laptop and grow either of the two to 7 figures, the real levers of economic power have become more concentrated and abstract.
Arguably, the democratization of financial tools has, ironically, coincided with one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in human history.
Perhaps, this is the prelude before wealth as we know it today becomes obsolete. But that's after this in inherent tension in the world is dealt with.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.
Zuckerberg and SBF didn't exactly make their money in decent ways. SBF was a crook, and Zuckerberg got rich from monetizing people's data and not giving them anything in return from selling their data.
I think that's actually a trend with ultra wealthy individuals, concentration of that magnitude or scale of wealth tend to require bending rules. SBF's wealth journey was very fast both upwards and downwards, I guess, easy come, easy go, also applies in the digital space.
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