You think a small group of people control the world? The reality is far worse

No one has any idea what the fuck is going on

My friend half-joked to me last week, as we were playing poker online, about how the World Economic Forum (Davos) was secretly running the world. I wish that was the case, I said in response, because the truth is far worse.

It's not unusual to hear people say there's a small group of people out there controlling the world. It could be press barons, bond markets, woke elites, bitcoin billionaires, the Davos elite, the Bill Gates foundation, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Tofu, Wall Street, George Soros, and so on. The list is long.

Perhaps they don't control the world, but they have too much influence over it. Right?

But to control something implies there is some semblance of order. It implies that things work in predictable ways and whoever gets control of the machine can run it.

I've got bad news for you.

If the last few years have shown anything, it's that no one is in charge, no one has any idea what's happening and no one knows what's coming around the corner. By any measure, all of the world's elites have been utterly humiliated over the last few years. They are just winging it, hoping they get some predictions right, and carrying on as normal when they usually don't. The reality of our chaotic world is far scarier than the theory that someone is in charge.

You don't believe me? I get it. But let's go through the scorecards. 

Wall Street’s humiliation

Let's start with finance - a world that throws obscene salaries at the brightest and most confident people; a world with trillions of dollars at stake. A world that, over the 12 months, has lost about 36 Trillion dollars in wealth, and many predict that far worse is to come.

The world’s richest Americans alone have lost about $1.4 Trillion in wealth and the Bitcoin billionaires have largely seen their wealth evaporate. Almost all of Wall Street’s superstars utterly failed to see this coming and the financial press is full of hedge funds swallowing huge losses.

As a Bloomberg opinion column put it:

Rising interest rates and surging inflation have laid waste to speculative bets, hobbled pandemic winners and destroyed trillions of dollars of investor wealth this year. This seismic shift is forcing investors and entrepreneurs to reassess previous beliefs and investments. Hedge fund managers and venture capitalists are suddenly talking a lot about “humility” and doing plenty of apologizing, or at least they should be.

The corporate world is in similar disarray. Facebook has lost nearly 60% of its value over the last year and its Metaverse idea is widely regarded as an expensive joke; Apple is on the verge of a massive slowdown; Google still has just one really profitable business (search ads) and that too is under strain (stock down 30% and counting). The biggest companies in the US are getting murdered by the stockmarket every day and the pain continues.

Political humiliation

The political world is even more in disarray. The EU ignored the growing threat from Russia in its own backyard and (again) needed a US bailout. It now has to wean itself off cheap Chinese goods and cheap Russian energy without a massive recession. Oh it also has actual fascists (in Italy and Hungary) to deal with.

The United States is badly polarised over Trump and the integrity of its democracy is hanging on by a thread. Its economy is stronger than that of most countries but on the edge of a massive recession.

You think China will be the new big dog? Hmm. Its economy is undergoing a massive implosion after the bursting of its housing and tech bubbles. Xi Jinping’s foolish “zero Covid” policy has kept the country paralysed and its population is falling at an unprecedented rate. Russian power was exposed as a facade and the country is on the verge of collapse. India is an ongoing economic shambles thanks to its Prime Minister’s disastrous policies, a country where cows still have much more protection than women. The UK? The less said on that subject the better, frankly.

What about the press barons?

Remember how they predicted that the election of David Cameron, then Theresa May, then Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss would herald a permanent realignment of British politics? How's that working out?

I repeat: no one is in charge.

Am I just naive?

Perhaps. And I’m sure I will get such accusations anyway. But think of it this way: if the richest, the brightest and the most powerful in the world are getting smacked around, what are the chances anyone is in control? I highly suspect anyone prospering right now is doing so out of luck rather than judgement.

This isn't to say no one is doing well. Clearly, some people are getting lucky and prospering. Moreover, in limited timespans and environments, some people are clearly doing well out of all this chaos. I suspect that’s luck more than judgement.

What the hell is going on?

My theory is that the world has become much more unpredictable because power has become more dispersed. Everyone from Brexiteers and Bond vigilantes, Twitter mobs and Tiktok trenders, to politicians, companies, activists, lawyers and financiers are fighting for influence and attention. And even if someone succeeds in getting their way, they do so only briefly before someone else comes in and wrecks their plans. The evidence for this is all around us.

Of course, a lot of people spend money for influence. But are they succeeding? That’s where the evidence is murky.

Take the World Economic Forum for example. Every year, this big event takes place in Davos, Switzerland, where the world’s most well-known meet and offer their opinions and make predictions. For a lot of people the “Davos elite” is the new bogeyman, the source of all our problems. But Davos is no more than a glorified talking shop. They invite celebrities and big names to speak, and sell tickets to rich people who want to mingle. It's just a money-making operation. A business. Davos held its annual conference just weeks before the Coronavirus hit in 2020, and there wasn't a single discussion on pandemics. They have no clue about what's coming, let alone a chance to shape it.

Bill Gates, as another example, was all over the airwaves when the Pandemic hit us, because he had warned about them. But did anyone actually follow through with all his proposals? Nope.

Why do we think this way?

I can only offer my own experience. We’re hit by an avalanche of news and information every day. How to sort it? Naturally, we gravitate towards people and voices we trust (i.e. agree with). But they are likely to tell us only one side of the story and reinforce what we already believe. I know this because I used to run popular left-wing publications that did exactly this. We didn’t run stories that challenged our readers because they would either be ignored, or annoy them. And when you’re a small publication relying on people’s goodwill to share your articles, you cannot afford to annoy them.

It was only after I actively subscribed to and started reading publications on the right (Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal) that I realised how misinformed I was. It’s been a sobering experience.

The grim reality

We're all in The Titanic, sailing at breakneck speed, without a captain in charge of averting course if an iceberg is in sight. If the last few years have shown anything, the scary thing isn't that a secretive group is controlling the world, it's that no one is controlling anything.

No one has any idea what’s happening or what’s about to happen next. And I find that a bit more worrying.