Recent years have been marked by the belief that financial markets were the place to create income and wealth where production economies could no longer generate profit in parts of the world driven by mature capitalism. The accusation of many is that this led to the progressive dismantling of welfare states and the subsequent privatisation of society. A process that would also have been facilitated by the actions of central banks and governments; and driven by the repeated periods of economic, political and social crisis that Western countries have experienced. According to this view, sovraign and investment funds, owners of staggering shares of the real economy, would in fact control the world’s economic-financial flows, thus becoming increasingly influential in shaping the political choices of individual states. However, there is no doubt that they also play a decisive role in the maintenance of currencies and public debt.
The questions to be asked are therefore the following: do investment funds decide the policies of states or do they maintain their stability, ensuring their economic and thus social and political equilibrium? Are they the true owners of the world or do they constitute the only remaining bulwark in defence of democracy?
