how democracy & a free economy die

"The glue of civic virtue, of doing the hard part of maintaining the stock of social capital and devoting some care to the common good in this place and in this time--those are somebody else's responsibility.
Me, I'm busy: my underlings located an asset just begging to be dismembered, offshored, stripmined, and we're going to make a killing. Then I'm off to my flat in London, then to my getaway in the South Pacific, and then to a quick meeting in Shanghai. I'm busy making a killing.Yes, a killing. What died is democracy and a functional economy of equal opportunity. Once the glue melts away, things fall apart. Welcome to what's left of the 2020s and the 2030s."

:Charles Hugh Smith
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/glue-binding-democracy-and-free-economy-has-melted