A self -described full-throated promoter of capitalism offers a trenchant critique of our contemporary American iteration of capitalism and its malign influences on our lives.
America is bracing for a coronavirus winter. The numbers nationwide continue to rise, and every day in November the number of new infections surpassed 100,000. Best-selling author Scott Galloway speculates about what the country could look like after the pandemic in his new book “Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity.” He speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about the road ahead.
Amanpour & Company (18 minute video with transcript provided)
Here are some highlights from the 18 minute interview:
The pandemic as opportunity:
But, yes, moving forward, there’s tremendous opportunity, both to bring down the costs of education, bring down the costs of health care, to spend more time with our families, to have less emissions had. So, a crisis is a terrible thing to waive. Let’s hope we don’t waste this one.
On U.S. healthcare:
I think the greatest shift in stakeholder value is about to occur in business history, and that is 17 percent of the U.S. GDP is health care, it’s arguably the largest business in the world clocking it at, you know, $3 trillion to $4 trillion a year, but the outcomes have been decreasing. Life expectancy has been going down, infant mortality is stuck at a certain level, customer satisfaction is pretty anemic. And even if you think about the medical profession as retail, it’s probably the second worst retail in America behind gas stations
On economic inequality:
So, look, if you’re in the top 10 percent of income earners, there’s no change in unemployment. It means, you’re no less vulnerable than you were professionally before the pandemic. There’s a 60 percent likelihood you can work from home, meaning, spend more time with your family, you maybe got 10 hours back a week. If you make less than 40,000 a year, 40 percent of those people have lost their job and less than 10 percent can work from home. So, you don’t like to say this out loud, but if you’re in the top 10 percent and you’re blessed with good health, you’re most likely spending more time with Netflix, your kids and less time commuting. And by the way, your stocks are probably up. And I would argue that a lot of stimulus, unfortunately, hasn’t been about arresting the pandemic, it hasn’t been about helping the neediest, it’s been about flattening the curve for rich people.
I think as a nation, we suffer from an idolatry of innovators and we personify company and believe that it all starts with the shareholder. The shareholder class is the premiere class and as long as the economy is strong, everything will fall into place. And we measure the economy’s health by these dangerous industries called the NASDAQ where 90 percent of stocks are run by the top 10 percent. The NASDAQ and the DAL aren’t indicators on the health of our economy, they are a proxy for how well the wealthy are doing, and spoiler alert, they are killing. Also, through a lack of DOJ and FTC action, we end up with private power that has now overrun government.
Ineffective government and the sorry state of journalism:
Also, through a lack of DOJ and FTC action, we end up with private power that has now overrun government. There are more full-time lobbyists from Amazon living in Washington, D.C. than there are sitting U.S. senators. There are more people manicuring Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg’s image in the communications department of Facebook than there are journalists at “The Washington Post.”
There’s more at the link provided. While not necessarily agreeing with his all of his proposed solutions, he has a keen eye for identifying and describing the problems.