Wealth & Money Quote by David Korten

Korten’s line lands like a calm diagnosis delivered over the whine of a runaway engine. He borrows the language of orthodoxy - “basic principles of market economics” - not to praise the system, but to accuse it of heresy. That’s the rhetorical judo here: instead of arguing from the activist margins, he positions himself as the one defending markets from what passes for “the market” in a globalized age.

The intent is coalition-building. “Each of these perspectives” signals a cross-ideological chorus: environmentalists, labor advocates, small-business conservatives, even disillusioned finance insiders. He’s telling skeptics that the critique isn’t niche or sentimental; it’s convergent. That word “conclusion” carries the vibe of a jury verdict, not a protest chant.

The subtext is sharper than the surface civility. “Out of control” implies captured regulators, footloose capital, corporate governance designed to evade accountability, and economic rules that reward extraction over value creation. By saying the economy performs “contrary” to market principles, he points at the paradox of late capitalism: the system that advertises competition often runs on consolidation, monopoly power, subsidies, bailouts, and externalized costs. In other words, it’s not too market; it’s too rigged.

Context matters because Korten emerged as a prominent critic during the post-Cold War triumphalism around free trade and financial liberalization. When elites insisted globalization was simply “markets at work,” he flips the script: if you believe in markets, you should be alarmed. The line is engineered to make the mainstream feel complicit - and to make dissent sound like common sense.