Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

Gangsterization, as we can see, is not necessarily bad for capitalist growth. Far from it. During the Cold War, American, Soviet, and Chinese leadership often found themselves at three-way loggerheads, struggling to integrate in a win-win-win world system. In the twenty-first century’s opening unipolar decades, bankers and VCs in the United States further liquefied capital flows and attracted billionaire interest from all over the world. If tech companies—along with expensive art and luxury housing—were a bet on further bifurcation and inequality, then they gave the world’s oligarch community a chance to double down on its own prosperity.