Blinken Out Loud

Heather Cox Richardson on a speech from Sec of State Antony Blinken that does a great job of summing up the state of post-cold war geopolitics. Blinken highlights something I keep saying is at the root of so many modern problems. “The international economic order of the past several decades is flawed in ways that have caused people to lose faith in it, Blinken explained. Technology and globalization have hollowed out entire industries and weakened workers, while laws protected property. Inequality grew dramatically between 1980 and 2020, with the richest 0.1% accumulating the same wealth as the poorest 50%. “The longer these disparities persist,’ Blinken pointed out, ‘the more distrust and disillusionment they fuel in people who feel the system is not giving them a fair shake. And the more they exacerbate other drivers of political polarization, amplified by algorithms that reinforce our biases rather than allowing the best ideas to rise to the top.'”