See the TED lecture here
Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds — and so is economic inequality, says writer Chrystia Freeland. In an impassioned talk, she charts the rise of a new class of plutocrats (those who are extremely powerful because they are extremely wealthy), and suggests that globalization and new technology are actually fueling, rather than closing, the global income gap. Freeland lays out three problems with plutocracy … and one glimmer of hope.
Author Chrystia Freeland looks under the hood of global capitalism to expose the technological, economic and structural inequalities pushing society in unforeseen directions. Along the way, she takes the temperature of a rising caste — the super rich — and shows how the creation of vast fortunes at the top hollow out the middle class in western industrialised countries. This rising income inequality, she argues, has a structural character, and is becoming a cultural and social issue, with consequences for social cohesion and social mobility.
Freeland began her career as an “accidental journalist” with frontline bulletins from the Ukraine in the heat of the Soviet collapse. She is now an editor at Thomson Reuters, and is frequently featured on media outlets ranging from the International Herald Tribune to The Colbert Report.
