In his new book, “Davos Man”, petersgoodman argues that the mega-rich’s pursuit of wealth has undermined society’s capacity to deal with crises and left the world in its present troubled state
The grandest of them were certainly among its winners. In that year, as millions of people died of covid-19 and many more faced severe hardship, the collective wealth of the world’s billionaires rose by $3.9trn, reports Peter Goodman, global economics correspondent for the, in his new book. The incongruity of the fortunes of the rich soaring amid mass suffering is no accident, he reckons.
He focuses on a handful of representative billionaires such as Mr Bezos and Stephen Schwarzman, the co-founder andof Blackstone, a private-equity firm, towards whom the author appears to harbour a particular animus. He serves up juicy quotes capturing Mr Schwarzman’s unrepentant glee at the financial opportunities created by the pandemic .
But the book is not altogether persuasive. Its arguments are weakened by a determination to pin most of the world’s ills on the mega-rich. Private-equity barons may be responsible for turfing longtime tenants out of properties in order to flip them and turn a profit, but not for the high cost of housing generally, which has far more to do with middle-class homeowners’ success in limiting dense development. Neither is immense wealth necessarily a product of tax-dodging and rent-seeking.
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