The fix for wealth inequality is the democratization of “Wall Street” which is the subject of this 4-parter to kick off 2022.
“Wall Street” is short hand for the global financial system, which includes many other cities such as London, Zürich, Geneva, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hong Kong, Singapore, San Francisco.
Wealth Inequality is behind a lot of problems in our world, pushing people into the arms of authoritarian leaders of both right and left. The hyper-capitalism behind the authoritarian right benefits only the 1% as did the only communism ever attempted (in the Soviet Union). Free markets with some element of capitalism is the best formula for wealth-producing innovation – and authoritarianism is very bad at this job.A more inclusive form of capitalism that works for the 99% is the best answer for people, but it is hard to reduce that to political sound bites. So my hope is that the free market will create inclusive capitalism by democratizing Wall Street.
I made the democratization of Wall Street image as a pyramid, to deliberately evoke Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The bottom has to be served by charity/philanthropy, as there is no economic return on meeting people’s basic physiological needs for water, food and basic healthcare. Just one layer up is the charity/philanthropy need to get people to see the benefits of investing, which we cover in Part 3: Birth Certificates to Get People onto the 1st rung of the wealth creation ladder. Part 4: Impact Investing for economic empowerment is about helping people to help themselves once they have a foot on the first rung of the ladder.
Before getting onto the positive ways to democratize Wall Street, read next week’s thrilling installment Part 2: Most of what is sold as democratiztion of Wall Street is one of these 3 lies
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