Ray Dalio bemoans partisan inability to resolve national issues
Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, despairing recently over such acute concerns as wealth inequality and climate change, bemoaned at Summit LA18,
“I’m concerned because we’re not working together around our common principles. How do you bring together all of these disparate ways of operating, and operate for the benefit of the whole? I think that we’re at odds with each other. The amount of tolerance there is for the differences, the amount of empathy, the desire to work it out and find the common solutions, is diminished.”
Frequently people opine, “It’s true, this polarization issue is serious, you are right,” but then caveat, ” …. But Climate Change/Healthcare/Minority Rights/Border Security/[insert favorite issue] is more important. That’s where I invest my efforts.”
My response? Whatever is your most worrisome issue, partisanship today is almost certainly what’s blocking it from being resolved. In a democracy, nothing happens without consensus. And as long as two poles are more consumed with opposing one another than with finding common ground on … well … anything, no one’s issues are going to be resolved in a lasting way.
So if you are concerned about Climate Change/Healthcare/Minority Rights/Border Security/[insert favorite issue], you need to be, by necessity, first concerned about how we resolve partisanship. It’s the common thread blocking progress on everything.
