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Expert's View
UPDATED: July 12, 2008 NO. 29 JUL. 17, 2008
The Era of Super Capitalism
The world has entered the "super capitalism" era when one third of its economic activities are controlled by less than 3 percent of global financial capital
 
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Therefore, driven by the diversification of growth momentum, global capital and the financial markets, the world economy has been developing soundly. The subprime mortgage crisis had caused enormous losses, but I strongly believe it will be a small setback in human financial history. In the long run, I believe the three trends I mentioned will continue.

You said earlier that the world is entering a "super capitalism" era. What does this mean for emerging markets and developed countries?

Times change and so do economic relations. Super capitalism was one of the major features of global economic development in the past two to three decades. One third of the world's economic activities are controlled by less than 3 percent of global financial capital. The world's top 500 companies, except resource-related companies, have nearly stopped production. The number of their researchers outpaces the number of workers, and the number of their research centers surmounts the number of factories. Those companies do not seek overall control of the production process, but choose a high-end and a link that cannot be copied, either technology or a monopoly or another link in market operations. This is called rent-seeking in economics and is a major distinction in the post-industrial era.

Emerging markets have benefited a lot from globalization. If the world's top 500 companies were still engaged in production, China's Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces would not have so many factories, and migrant workers would not have so many job opportunities. But compared with "super capital," we [China] only earned a little, while they [the companies] devoured the lion's share of the profit. On the face of it, China's industrialization is occurring very quickly and is transforming into high-end capital-intensive industries from low-cost manufacturing industries. But it is still not the boss and is just working for super capital.

To a large extent, employees in developed countries are the ones who are frustrated the most. The end of assembly lines caused lots of workers in developed countries to lose their jobs. The investment return of nearly all developed countries is increasing, but workers' wages have not kept up and have sometimes fallen. This actually reflects the conflict between labor and capital.

Sovereign wealth funds, such as China Investment Corp., meet with lots of obstacles with global investments. What is your take on their investment choices?

We can only make a judgment after two or three decades on whether our sovereign wealth fund investments are doing well at present. Currently, sovereign wealth funds are facing two unavoidable obstacles. One is liquidity. They mostly seek asset placements in the primary market. When the market is booming, nobody will sell his stocks to a sovereign wealth fund that comes from another country. When companies are willing to sell stocks to a sovereign wealth fund, it must be at a time when market conditions are very bad.

Second is political sensitivity. Under normal conditions, the United States will not allow Chinese capital to carve out its core competitiveness. But with the subprime mortgage crisis, the United States was in desperate need of capital, which provided a golden opportunity for sovereign wealth funds.

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