According to Fortune, Albert Edwards—the Société Générale strategist who’s been in finance since 1982 and famously predicted the “end of capitalism” in 2023—says the corporate sector’s “greedflation” has created its own political backlash. Edwards points to the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York as evidence that affordability concerns are now driving political outcomes. He specifically cited corporate profit margins soaring “off to infinity” after the pandemic, noting that when unit costs rise, margins should fall—but unprecedented government stimulus let companies use inflation as cover. The analyst referenced a St. Louis Fed study showing corporate profits as a share of national income surging since the inflation spike. Edwards believes this corporate excess has created severe political instability, with first-time homebuyers now averaging 40 years old and young people feeling shut out of wealth accumulation.
Corporate greed meets political backlash
Here’s the thing: Edwards isn’t some anti-capitalist radical. He’s been inside the system for over four decades, watching these patterns unfold. And what he’s seeing now genuinely worries him. Companies got away with massive profit expansion during the inflation crisis because governments flooded the system with stimulus money. Basically, they had cover. But that short-term bonanza is creating long-term political consequences that could fundamentally reshape our economic system.
What’s fascinating is that Edwards actually thinks policies like rent controls and price controls—the kind Mamdani advocates—are “lunacy.” He lived through the 1970s and remembers how that worked out. Yet he recognizes that when capitalism becomes this dysfunctional, society will “come back full circle to this.” It’s not about whether these policies are good economics—it’s about the political reality they represent.
The intergenerational betrayal
This is where things get really interesting. Edwards identifies what he calls “intergenerational strife” as the core driver. We’re seeing the first generation where people don’t believe they’re better off than their parents. Think about that for a second. The American dream has always been built on upward mobility, and now that foundation is cracking.
Young people can’t get on the housing ladder. They see wealth concentration at levels that feel almost feudal. And as Edwards notes, “it takes the incentivization out of the economy if young people don’t feel they’re participating.” When people have no stake in the system, why would they defend it?
Strange bedfellows across the political spectrum
What’s wild is that this concern isn’t limited to the left. Peter Thiel has been warning about this exact problem for years. In 2020, he emailed Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreessen about a “broken generational compact,” arguing that “if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it.” More recently, he told The Free Press that “if you proletarianize the young people, you shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually become communist.”
On the legal side, Columbia’s Tim Wu describes this moment as “an economy-wide problem” where “everything kind of just creeps.” It’s that feeling of something you like becoming gradually worse. American politics are “very angry” right now, driven by economic resentment and a sense that “we let things go a little too far.”
The memento mori of markets
Edwards sees his role as similar to “Caesar’s slave”—the figure from Roman tradition who would whisper “memento mori” (“remember you will die”) to triumphant generals. He’s the voice reminding markets and corporations of their mortality. And right now, that message is: “You reap what you sow.”
The political reaction embodied by Mamdani’s focus on affordability isn’t some fringe phenomenon—it’s a clear sign that economic consequences are driving mainstream political change. Edwards believes there’s “a day of reckoning coming in,” and corporations only have themselves to blame. They pushed too hard, took too much, and now the pendulum is swinging back. The question isn’t whether there will be a backlash, but how severe it will be.
