While less than 15 percent of Australian workers: “Collective Bargaining Coverage,” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, accessed August 14, 2020, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CBC.
Even in the United Kingdom: “Strengthening Our NHS,” Conservative Party, accessed August 14, 2020, https://www.conservatives.com/our-priorities/nhs.
In 1968, South Korea had a lower GDP: “GDP per Capita (Current US$)—Korea, Rep., Ghana, Japan, United States,” World Bank, accessed July 27, 2020, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2019&locations=KR-GH-JP-US&start=1960&view=chart.
The military seized control of the country: “South Korea—Timeline,” BBC News, May 1, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-15292674.
After watching Japan’s rapid growth: Peter Pae, “South Korea’s Chaebol,” Bloomberg, August 29, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/republic-samsung.
Samsung, the largest of these conglomerates: Will Kenton, “Chaebol Structure,” Investopedia, September 29, 2019, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chaebol-structure.asp.
In 2018, the K-pop group BTS: Xander Zellner, “BTS Becomes First K-Pop Act to Hit No. 1 on Billboard Artist 100 Chart,” Billboard, May 20, 2018, https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8458534/bts-first-k-pop-act-hit-no-1-artist-100-chart.
seven of the world’s eleven longest-serving: Dave Lawler, “How the World’s Longest-Serving Leaders Keep Power, and Hand It Over,” Axios, March 21, 2019, https://www.axios.com/worlds-longest-serving-leaders-africa-putin-8046c3c0-3cef-4166-bd1a-46533f1b46a4.html.
The median age is only twenty years old: Jacob Ausubel, “Populations Skew Older in Some of the Countries Hit Hard by COVID-19,” Pew Research Center, April 22, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/22/populations-skew-older-in-some-of-the-countries-hit-hard-by-covid-19/.
Over the next three decades: “World Population Prospects 2019,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, accessed January 3, 2020, https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/903.
Already, people in the Sahel region: Ahmadou Aly Mbaye, “Africa’s Climate Crisis, Conflict, and Migration Challenges,” Africa in Focus (blog), Brookings Institution, September 20, 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2019/09/20/africas-climate-crisis-conflict-and-migration-challenges/; Kanta Kumari Rigaud, Alex de Sherbinin, Bryan Jones, Jonas Bergmann, Viviane Clement, Kayly Ober, Jacob Schewe, Susana Adamo, Brent McCusker, Silke Heuser, and Amelia Midgley, Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461.
seventy million people displaced: “More Than 70 Million Displaced World wide, Says UNHCR,” BBC News, June 19, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-48682783.
all but fourteen of Africa’s fifty-four countries: Abdi Latif Dahir, “These Are the African Countries Not Signed to China’s Belt and Road Project,” Quartz, September 30, 2019, https://qz.com/africa/1718826/the-african-countries-not-signed-to-chinas-belt-and-road-plan/.
The Belt and Road projects often come with strings attached: Mark Green, “China’s Debt Diplomacy,” Foreign Policy, April 25, 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/25/chinas-debt-diplomacy/.
In 2017, the government of Guinea-Conakry: Saliou Samb, “China to Loan Guinea $20 Billion to Secure Aluminum Ore,” Reuters, September 6, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-guinea-mining-china/china-to-loan-guinea-20-billion-to-secure-aluminum-ore-idUSKCN1BH1YT.
China constructed its first overseas naval base: Max Bearak, “In Strategic Djibouti, a Microcosm of China’s Growing Foothold in Africa,” Washington Post, December 30, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/in-strategic-djibouti-a-microcosm-of-chinas-growing-foothold-in-africa/2019/12/29/a6e664ea-beab-11e9-a8b0-7ed8a0d5dc5d_story.html; Mailyn Fidler, “African Union Bugged by China: Cyber Espionage as Evidence of Strategic Shifts,” Net Politics (blog), Council on Foreign Relations, March 7, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/blog/african-union-bugged-china-cyber-espionage-evidence-strategic-shifts.
The governments of at least a dozen African countries: Steven Feldstein, The Global Expansion of AI Surveillance (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 17, 2019), https://carnegieendowment.org/2019/09/17/global-expansion-of-ai-surveillance-pub-79847.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I relied on a group of essential family, friends, and advisers who offered wisdom, judgment, and support throughout the writing process. Foremost among the many are my wife, Felicity, and brother, Steve. Nothing is more important to me than family, and Felicity and Steve protected and sustained our family as the 2020s began to rage.
I must also single out Max Bergami, Robert Bole, Jared Cohen, Ben Scott, Sheel Tyle, and Ari Wallach. Without their friendship and support on things big and small I would not have made it through these last several years in one piece. They are indispensable friends and partners.
I am profoundly grateful to UTA’s Pilar Queen and Holt’s Serena Jones. Pilar has fought for me and for this book since I introduced the idea of it to her. She is a savvy, passionate advocate for her authors and I am lucky to be among them. Serena was the perfect editor. She gave me the freedom and encouragement I needed to produce a manuscript along with the guidance and expertise to make it a much better, more disciplined work. She brought just the right combination of head and heart to our book. Among Serena’s colleagues at Henry Holt and Company, I am especially grateful to Amy Einhorn, Maggie Richards, Marian Brown, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy, Sarah Crichton, Pat Eisemann, Anita Sheih, Devon Mazzone, and Maia Sacca-Schaeffer.
Jack Corrigan and Jonathan Cox worked with me from what was just the beginning of an idea and turned it into this book. Jack brought passion, persistence, a perpetually positive attitude, and journalistic excellence to the project. He is the latest of Northwestern University’s stars of journalism. Jonathan Cox immersed himself in my vision, intent, and content and then understood better than me what it would take to produce a great book. He is a master of understanding a book’s architecture and how to construct something with both a foundation and flourish.
I drew on the skills of a great many researchers to help turn ideas into thoroughly researched prose. They include Amy Martyn, Leigh Giangreco, Matthew Spector, and Will Peischel.
I completed this book while serving as a distinguished visiting professor at the business school of the University of Bologna, the world’s oldest university, founded by students in the year 1088. The dean of Bologna Business School, Max Bergami, is an inspirational leader and friend. He has built a remarkable institution with a team I am blessed to be a part of, and I offer special thanks to those who have been so helpful to me, including Emanuele Bajo, Giulia Beltramelli, Barbara Biondi, Anna Pia Chiarandini, Michele Ferrari, Riccardo Fini, Roberto Grandi, Ludovia Leone, Andrea Lipparini, Ilaria Manghi, Alfredo Montanari, Gabriele Morandin, Eloisa Palacio, Francesco Porro, Giorgio Prodi, Marcello Russo, Massimo Sideri, Maurizio Sobrero, Augusto Valeriani, and Alessandra Zammit.
Also from my life in Italy I must offer special thanks for the friendship and guidance of Enzo, Domitilla, and Lorenzo Benigni; Riccardo Busi; Marco Checchi; Max Ciociola; Gianluca D’Agostino; Paolo Dalla Mora; Luca della Godenza; Valerio De Molli; Gabriele and Giovanni Domenichini; Michelangelo Fasoli; Carlo Feltrinelli; Karin Fischer; Giuseppe Fontana; Rosanna Gaja; Marco Lombardo; Monica Maggioni; Paola Manes; Maurizio Molinari; Alessandro Monti; Bruno and Matteo Riffeser Monti; Mattia Mor; Giulio Napolitano; Giovanna Pancheri; Giacomo Pescatore; Andrea Petremoli; Romano Prodi; Massimo Redaelli; Gianni Riotta; Sara Roversi; Germano Scarpa; Filippo Sensi; Jack Sintini; Maurizio Tamagnini; Massimiliano Tarantino; Francesco Ubertini; Armando Varricchio; and Dario Zanotti.
Thank you for the continued partnership from the team representing me at United Talent Agency, including Don Epstein, Kristen Sena, Evan Martino, Michael Steele, Jennifer Peykar, David Buchalter, Charlotte Perm
an, and Mike D’Andrea.
Thank you to Bobby Duffy and his colleagues at the Policy Institute of King’s College London for access to your tremendous research resources and expertise.
I must acknowledge one of the spiritual fathers of the words in this book: Brunello Cucinelli. Brunello has built a multibillion-dollar business while demonstrating that it can be done in service to the broadest possible stakeholder community. I appreciate his friendship and guidance and that of his colleagues and family members, including Camilla and Carolina Cucinelli, Riccardo Stefanelli, Alessio Piastrelli, Francesco Tomassini, and Francesco Bottigliero.
And a final, heartfelt thank-you to the nearly one hundred people who sat for interviews, offered analysis of our complicated world, and reviewed my text for accuracy and completeness. Any credit is shared with them and any shortcomings or errors are my own.
INDEX
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Abbott Laboratories
Abercrombie & Fitch
AB InBev
accountability
activist investing
Adidas
Affordable Care Act
Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of
AFL-CIO
Africa. See also specific countries
China and
Chinese model and
climate change and
closed systems and
corruption in
democracy in
open vs. closed systems in
population explosion in
social contract in
tax avoidance and
tax havens and
African Union
Afwerki, Isaias
agriculture
AI ethics
Airbnb
airline industry
Alabama
al-Assad, Bashar
Alexander, Douglas
Alibaba
Alipay
Alphabet Inc.. See also Google
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America
Amazon
American Airlines
American Federation of Labor
Andrés, José
Android
Anduril Industries
Angola
Anguilla
anti-monopoly measures
anti-union laws
Apple
apps. See also specific apps
arms control
Arms Export Control Act
artificial intelligence (AI)
Ascani family
Asia. See also specific countries
AT&T
Australia
Austria
authoritarianism
automation. See also artificial intelligence (AI)
Bahamas
Baidu
Baltimore Teachers Union
Bank of England
Bank Sepah International
Banting, Frederick
Barclays bank
Bargaining for the Common Good
base erosion
Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project (BEPS 2.0)
beer companies
Beijing Kunlun Tech
Belomorkanal
Belt and Road Initiative
benefit corporations (“B Corps”)
Benioff, Marc
Bermuda
Best, Charles
Bezos, Jeff
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Billboard Artist 100 chart
biotechnology
BlackRock
Blair, Tony
Blankfein, Lloyd
BMW
Boeing
Bork, Robert
Boyd, Cindy Scherer
Boyd, Jesy
Brandeis, Louis
Bremmer, Ian
British East India Company
British Empire. See also United Kingdom
British Labour Party
British Parliament
British South Africa Company
British Virgin Islands
Brown, Gordon
BTS
Buddhist temples
Budweiser
Burundi
businesses, power of. See also corporate power
Business Roundtable
Butz, Earl
California
California State University San Marcos
Calvin Klein
Cambridge University
Cameron, David
Cameroon
campaign finance laws
Canada
capital, nonproductive uses of
capitalism. See also shareholder capitalism; stakeholder capitalism
competition and
destructive aspects of
triumph over communism
Capone, Al
Caribbean. See also specific countries
Carney, Mark
Carson, Johnnie
Carter, Ash
Carthy, Matt
Castro, Fidel
Cayman Islands
cellular frequencies. See also 5G
Central Bank of China
CEOs. See also specific CEOs
compensation for
diplomacy skills and
diversity initiatives and
short-term planning and
Charter Communications
Chemical Footprint Project
Chevrolet
child-labor prevention
Chile
China
AI and
authoritarianism and
cheap manufacturing in
closed systems and
cyber war and
government and private sector in
hardware from
private sector in
race for technological dominance and
surveillance and
technology transfer and
Western technology companies and
Chinese Communist Party
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference
Chouinard, Malinda
Chouinard, Yvon
Chouinard Equipment Ltd.
Christensen, John
Chrysler
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
Cisco Systems
Citigroup
Citizens United decision
City of London Corporation
Civil War (US)
climate change
closed systems
CloudWalk Technology
Coca-Cola
Code War. See also cyber war
Cohen, Jared
Cold War
end of
Collip, James
colonial history
Columbia Law School
Comcast Corporation
Commerce Department
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
Commonwealth countries
companies, power of. See corporate power
competition, capitalism and
concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)
Corley, Andrea
Corley, Gabriella
Corley family
corporate autocracy
corporate farming
corporate impact, measuring
corporate power
checks on
diversity initiatives and
government leadership and
government policy and
market consolidation and
rise in
corporate raiders
corporate socialism
corporate tax, developing nations and
corporations. See also corporate power; specific corporations
anti
-union behavior of
cybersecurity and
foreign policy and
government bailouts for
philanthropy and
principles of
regulations and
social contract and
social responsibility and
tax havens and
wartime and
worker equity in
COVID-19
Cowper-Coles, Sherard
Cucinelli, Brunello
cyber-military-industrial complex
cybersecurity
cyber war
Daimler-Benz
data
Daws, Gavan
Defense Digital Service
De Grisogono
Delaware
Delmarva Peninsula
Deloitte
Delta Air Lines
democracy
vs. authoritarianism
generational attitudes toward
inefficiency of
social contract and
surveillance and
Democrats
De Niro, Robert
Denmark
developing nations. See also specific countries
open vs. closed systems in
social contract in
tax havens and
diabetes
Dickens, Charles
Didi Chuxing
digital revolution
diplomacy
Ditka, Mike
diversity initiatives
Doctorow, Cory
Dodd-Frank Act
Dokolo, Sindika
Dolber, Brian
Dominican Republic, corporate tax rate in
Donne, John
dos Santos, Isabel
dos Santos, José Eduardo
dos Santos, José Filomeno
“Double Irish” profit sharing
Drivers Bill of Rights
“Dutch Sandwich” profit sharing
East Asia. See also specific countries
East India Company. See British East India Company
eBay
economic concentration
economic crises
Edelman, R. David
Einstein, Albert
El-Erian, Mohamed