The Financialization Of The Economy Impedes Our Ability To Deal With Climate Change

This article describes two forms of capitalism.  The older form, in which individuals are tied to organizations, necessarily has a long term time horizon.  The executives and owners will be there to receive the returns on long term investments in employees and the enterprise.  In the modern organization individuals are not tied to any particular enterprise.  They expect that they will move from one opportunity to a better opportunity.  Executives and capital are mobile and opportunities are everywhere.  Since the payoff from investments in employees and the enterprise takes place in the long term they do not benefit mobile executives and mobile capital. 

One of the problems with this shift in our commercial institutions is that governments require a long term time horizon to deal with our many of our major problems.  Climate change, for example, requires a long term time horizon.  Unfortunately,  government is heavily burdened by the leaders of institutions that have a short term time horizon.  Problems that don't effect the current quarter, or the current nanosecond in capital markets,  fail to get the resources that they require.