Rory Sutherland: Capitalism is ‘unbelievably tedious’ and ‘needs a rebrand’
Capitalism is “unbelievably tedious” and needs to be rebranded in order for people to fight for its survival by the end of Donald Trump’s second US administration, marketing veteran Rory Sutherland has said.
Speaking on the latest episode of CityAM‘s Boardroom Uncovered podcast, Sutherland said that free market capitalism has been made “so boring that I’m not sure people really feel the urge to defend it anymore”.
He added that another name for capitalism is needed – one which recognises that “markets do not mean financial markets, but fundamentally wealth is created through innovation, marketing, behavioural change”.
Also as part of the episode, Sutherland said the billionaire founder of Octopus Energy, Greg Jackson, should be recognised more for his achievements in business and made a national hero.
The vice chairman of Ogilvy added that it’s “tragic” that the UK doesn’t “make more heroes of our really innovative business successes” in the way the USA does.
‘We’ve managed to make free market capitalism so boring’
Speaking on the Boardroom Uncovered episode, Sutherland, who is the vice chairman of Ogilvy, said: “I’d argue that when Trump and JD Vance go, we have to fight harder for Western values.
“I grew up in the era when you had a communist threat from the Soviet Union, and there was a kind of universal belief that capitalism was free market capitalism was worth fighting for.
“Somehow we ourselves managed to make free market capitalism so boring that I’m not sure people really feel the urge to defend it anymore.
“No one ever goes, what do we want? ‘We’d like McKinsey to come in and slim our workforce and perform operation efficiency improvements. When do we want it? Now’.
“No one’s ever going to go out on the streets in support of what you might call early 21st century capitalism.
“It’s just unbelievably tedious. It shouldn’t be called capitalism at all. It should be called consumer tested market innovation.
“We need a better word for it, which recognises that markets do not mean financial markets, but fundamentally wealth is created through innovation, marketing, behavioural change.”
‘We’ve created a nonsensical economy’
Asked what he would do if he was Prime Minister for the day, Rory Sutherland said he would tax property and wealth “far more” and income “far less”.
He argued that a “nonsensical economy” has been created where “we have a very active mechanism for redistributing wealth from people who earn more to people who earn less”.
Sutherland added this is the case “despite the fact that actually income inequality isn’t the big problem. It’s wealth inequality”.
He said: “We don’t have any mechanism for generational wealth redistribution. And given what’s happened with the property market and the fact that we’ve had a stupid asset price inflation, this is going to lead to massive fractious society.”