Latest news with #capitalism
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
How Europe Is Losing the Global Tech Race
The U.S. is pulling away from Europe in economic growth—and one big reason is the continent's inability to create new big tech firms the size of Apple, Meta or Google. Europe is generating far fewer unicorns—new, privately held companies that are worth more than $1 billion—than China and the U.S. Unicorns are a good measure of capitalist innovation; they are almost always fast-growing firms that have found a new way of doing something and are shaking up an existing industry.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
The Politics and Perils of Pornography
To the Editor: Re 'The Delusion of Porn's Harmlessness,' by Christine Emba (Opinion guest essay, May 25): Thanks to Ms. Emba for writing about pornography and its negative effect on society. I try to teach my daughter and 8-year-old granddaughter that they bring more to the table than their looks, that they are more than the sum total of their body parts. I'm breathing a slight sigh of relief that maybe this next generation will realize that. Jenny MottierCincinnati To the Editor: In her essay, Christine Emba writes: 'As a society, we are allowing our desires to continue to be molded in experimental ways, for profit, by an industry that does not have our best interests at heart.' But I'm left wondering, what industry does? The food industry floods us with ultraprocessed products that are literally killing us. The fossil fuel industry drives us toward climate catastrophe. The health care industry leaves thousands uninsured and allows people to die if they can't pay. Surely, Ms. Emba must see that the real problem is the current state of capitalism, where profit is the only true priority. The porn industry is just one more expression of that system. Karaca MestciLondon To the Editor: As long as we, as a society, continue to withhold age-appropriate sex education from our young people, they will continue to seek out answers to their questions and context for their feelings anywhere they can find them. The internet has, unfortunately, become the primary source of this for many children and young adults. Withholding reliable and useful information about sex does not make the normal and appropriate curiosity that young people have about bodies, behavior and sex go away. It just encourages the naturally curious to seek out answers in other places. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Investing High in the Sky and Deep in the Ocean
Welcome to the Wall Street Week newsletter, bringing you stories of capitalism about things you need to know, but even more things you need to think about. I'm David Westin, and this week we went up in the sky to learn what it will take to fix the US air traffic control system and deep in the ocean for the story of the undersea cables that carry 99% of the world's internet traffic. If you're not yet a subscriber, sign up here for this newsletter. A series of incidents in the US have put a spotlight on the need to improve and modernize the nation's air traffic control system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the problems have created "a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a brand new, state-of-the-art air traffic control system."
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
In Hong Kong, my daughter was dazzled by futuristic tech – and I glimpsed the world she'll grow up in
A few months ago, I travelled with my six-year-old daughter to Hong Kong. As we made our way out of the airport and boarded a train, we shared a brief moment that gave me pause to reflect on how different her conception of the world will be from the one I grew up with. We sat down on immaculate seats, surrounded by LED screens. She looked around and said: 'Wow Daddy, we don't have trains like this back in London.' As the week wore on, and she pointed out other things that she had never seen back home, her comment about the high-speed train took on a broader resonance. Used to Britain's strained and crumbling public transport, my little girl had identified how economic power has migrated to a different model of capitalism over the past generation. When I was growing up in the heady, Cool Britannia era of the 1990s, Britain almost seemed like the apex of global civilisation. The only place ahead on its developmental trajectory was the US. And even if MTV or Hollywood presented it as the shining city on the hill, the smart kids knew it was really just Rome to Britain's Greece. In school, we learned how Britain, the birthplace of industrialised capitalism and parliamentary democracy and long the colonial ruler of places including Hong Kong, had created an ideal form of society that was the model for everywhere else. When we told the story of how capitalism emerged, it was through the enclosure of medieval English villages and the growth of the Industrial Revolution's 'dark satanic mills'. When we spoke of the rise of democracy, it was through the nobles holding King John to Magna Carta or Oliver Cromwell cementing the power of parliament. Britain, the US and some parts of western Europe were the 'developed world'. Everywhere else was 'developing'. And development was a one-way road. The various crises we saw on the news engulfing distant lands in Africa, Asia or the Middle East were framed as a painful step in the maturing process that countries passed through in order to become societies like Britain. This is not the world that British children growing up in the 21st century are now experiencing. Our trip to Hong Kong was a stark reminder of this. Back in 2014, the Chinese island city-state was named the overseas destination that most young British professionals wanted to relocate to. In second place was Dubai. Today, entire television programmes are devoted to the subject of young Brits moving to 'DXB', alongside other Arab cities such as Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. In Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman is pushing forward with his sci-fi vision for the Line – a futuristic, AI-powered linear city, where smart technology will connect inhabitants moving between two parallel mirrored skyscrapers that stretch across 170km of desert. Meanwhile multiple UK governments have been trying and failing for years to advance plans for a high-speed rail line, HS2. The affection young British influencers show for places that are still ultimately autocratic, no matter how much gloss and ring-lighting they use, is hardly surprising. The football clubs British kids support might be owned by Gulf royalty. The films they watch might look as though they take place in LA but are shot in the UAE. The idea that these are the places you now go to if you want to 'make it' has become almost as ubiquitous as the idea of following the 'American dream' was a generation ago. What does this shift in the axis of our global order mean politically? As the historian Quinn Slobodian detailed in his 2023 book Crack-Up Capitalism, Hong Kong long functioned as a utopian ideal for free-market radicals who sought to push a vision of capitalism that worked best without the constraining demands of mass democracy. Even Donald Trump, in his nativist justification for a trade war with China, often betrays the envy he feels towards its ability to crush dissent and suppress wages in a way that US constitutional traditions make more difficult. In Britain, it has become more common for our politicians and journalists to cite their admiration for the emergence of technologically advanced, politically repressive states in what was once called the 'developing world'. The former British prime minister Boris Johnson travelled to Riyadh in February and stated: 'Saudi Arabia is a country where things are happening with incredible speed and decisiveness. Frankly, we need to learn that in the UK.' About the same time, the Telegraph journalist Isabel Oakeshott wrote a gushing piece about moving to Dubai for cheaper private school fees, saying that 'unlike angry, divided Britain, Dubai is the ultimate multicultural success story'. The idea that capitalism might work best with limited, or even nonexistent, democracy is quietly becoming more acceptable. Just last week, Oakeshott's partner, Reform UK's deputy leader, Richard Tice, said Britain should 'aspire to' the low crime rate and widespread national pride found in Dubai. That the Emirati city is an absolute monarchy – regularly criticised by human rights organisations for imprisoning journalists, lawyers and political dissidents with little concern for the public's right to freedom of expression – appeared to be of little concern to Tice or others on the conservative right who celebrate the city's 'booming metropolis'. With our political and media elites now openly celebrating draconian regimes, it is likely that my daughter's generation will grow up receiving a different message about the importance of Britain's democratic 'traditions'. According to a Channel 4 study from earlier this year, 52% of gen Zers felt the UK would be a better place 'if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections'. Unless our leaders start to promote an alternative vision of how society could function, and Britain's place in a world where the west is no longer 'best', more and more of our young people will have the feeling that the future lies elsewhere. Kojo Koram teaches at the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London, and writes on issues of law, race and empire
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Italy's Dynamic Family Firms Are Breaking the ‘Succession' Mold
Come to Milan, as I recently did, and you cannot help but notice that Italian capitalism remains what it has always been: a family affair. (Granted, I was there to attend a conference on the future of capitalism.) The great Milan-based fashion houses of Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada are all family companies. The Ferraris that roar through the city's streets, the Bezzera machines that make such excellent coffee, the Ferrero chocolates that finish off a meal are all produced by family companies. Family giants such as Ferrari sit atop a vast network of suppliers, almost all of them family companies, that dominate the Lombardy region. Giant public companies and chain stores belong to the alien world of Anglo-Saxon capitalism. Even in the most economically advanced region of Italy, the family is king. Yet anyone who has watched 'Succession' knows that family companies are subject to unique and often fatal problems, notably dysfunctional children and family feuds. Most languages have a phrase for the three-generation curse of family companies: 'clogs to clogs in three generations,' in English, for instance. In Italy the popular phrase is 'from stables to stars to stables.'
