While many analysts and economists will be talking for months about the epic downfall of crypto-exchange company FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, their focus will be primarily on the billions lost, the mismanagement of funds, the fraud inherent in yield farming and the alleged betrayal of investor trust. This is a tale as old as time and not anything surprising. What many in the mainstream are missing, though, is Fried’s attachments to the World Economic Foundation, various global elitists and his avid sermonizing of the tenets of “effective altruism”, which are nearly identical to the tenets of Klaus Schwab’s Stakeholder Capitalism agenda.
The WEF lists FTX as a corporate “partner” and participant, which means the company must meet the globalist organization’s standards for Stakeholder Capitalism, a socialist economic model which deconstructs the Adam Smith and Milton Friedman free market foundation.
Milton Friedman argued that the only responsibility of business should be growth and profit (within the boundaries of the law) with the shareholders in mind. The WEF insists that the Friedman philosophy must be abandoned and that the job of wealthy elites and corporations is to use profits as a tool for managing society (the so-called “stakeholders”). In other words, corporate leaders should become cultural and political leaders fulfilling greater ideological goals, all of them decidedly socialist/Marxist in origin.
Stakeholder Capitalism becomes a way to trick the public into investing their faith in corprorate leadership because these companies are no longer simply “in it for the money,” they are in it for the survival of the world and the species, right? The companies become saviors, not just mercantilists. That kind of blind faith allows people to be taken advantage of in a big way. It’s the same kind of faith once applied to kings and monarchies centuries ago, and it usually leads to various forms of feudalism.
In the WEF’s vision of the future, the average person will “own nothing, have no privacy and be happy about it” while corporate elites in partnership with governments micromanage all production, all distribution and all finance.
An ongoing example of the early stages of this model is ESG, a credit system in which loans are given to companies and individuals based on their ESG score, derived from how dedicated they are to globalist causes. In the near future, if you don’t promote social justice ideology and support establishment climate change claims, then you might not be able to get a loan from the bank for your business. You might not be able to get a mortgage loan for a new home. In fact, you might not even be allowed to have a bank account.
FTX and Fried heavily relied on investment firms like Blackrock, which is a major component of the spread of ESG. This may be why FTX regularly announced their devotion to climate and social justice projects, it kept them in the good graces of the ESG overlords.
A key component of Stakeholder Capitalism is the need for a digital currency framework, which might explain the WEF’s interest in FTX as a partner. The move to a cashless society is the next step necessary for the micro-management of the economy and the ability to dole out rewards or punishments based on ESG scoring. It is an incremental top down implementation of a framework similar to China’s “social credit system.”
The concept is being sold by the WEF and their corporate partners as way to create “equity” within the economy by incentivizing the redistribution of wealth from the very rich to the very poor and to ‘humanitarian causes.” It uses access to the banking apparatus and the economy itself as a carrot or a cudgel. Really, it is the ultimate form of centralization and control posing as a charitable movement for the greater good. But without the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail, there can be no greater good.
Evidence is mounting that the equity measures involved in Stakeholder Capitalism will actually erase wealth rather than create wealth. To be sure, it would make the majority of people financially even – Instead of being equally rich, we will all suffer in equal poverty.
The downfall of FTX and Sam Blankman-Fried illustrates this problem with clarity. Fried constantly espoused the pie-in-the-sky ideals of Stakeholder Capitalism, engaging in a kind of corporate charity built on socialist guidelines and climate cultism, while at the same time draining client accounts.
The FTX profit strategy was based initially on taking advantage of imbalances in international crypto exchange rates; a limited window for a quick cash grab rather than an idea for long term viability. It also relied on the crypto market constantly reinventing the wheel with new branding and marketing to grow demand for technology that the majority of people around the world don’t really need or particularly desire.
Fried suggests that his intent all along was to expand capital as a means to give it away to leftist causes. He donated over $40 million to Democrat campaigns, for example. The problem was he failed in business while giving away the money of his clients at the same time. Some people argue that his clients are partly culpable for the losses, but Fried explicitly stated that his company would not use client funds in such a way. He lied to them, which is not a great feature of a supposed humanitarian.
Being 30 years old and naive certainly didn’t help him, but Fried is a perfect example of why corporation leaders have no business being involved in social engineering. They are not qualified enough nor intelligent enough nor benevolent enough to mold society at large; no one is that wise or experienced. Beyond that, the Stakeholder Capitalism ideology is rooted in socialist drivel, making FTX a socialist drivel-based company.
The model is designed to inevitably reduce the standard of living for most people over time rather than improve it. Fried just showed us how and why.
FTX is a petri dish for the disease of Stakeholder Capitalism. In the end, FTX and Fried are a warning to us all that business should be separate from politics and cultural moderation. They are better off focusing on making money and increasing productivity and innovation; those companies that can’t should be allowed to fail, not be propped up as pillars of social cohesion. This is the true way to ensure human progress. In the meantime, the rest of us are much better off without their help and “charitable” oversight.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 11/12/2022 – 16:50
