Talita's Blog

They may come and go but fundamentally, I suspect trends are here to stay. The world changes as we blink and in those changes we define and are defined. At least that’s what I gather from the experts who eek out a living predicting these mirrors of society. Take Elle Magazine’s own Dion Chang as a case in point. According to him, the current fashion – which most South African women boldly ignore – is volume; enveloping fabric that turns you into a cup cake. This is a reflection of society’s disenchantment with technology and the reflexive need to seek warmth and home-comforts. Naturally interior decorators manifest the same trend in shaggy rugs, warm wood and cork floors and tactile fabrics such as velvet.

My interest lies in how do you predict these fickle seasons that can mean the difference between backing the right commodity and turning a buck or being bankrupt and out of luck? Just two years ago everyone on the stock market was cocky and wearing a set of horns, now the look of the eyes of refugees haunts those weathering the prime-mortgage crisis and it doesn’t take Warren Buffet to tell you things changed very quickly and few expected it.

So far I have no idea how the professionals divine the future but I think I’ve found a trend of my own and it concerns the interesting dynamic of people from different racial and economic classes mimicking each other. I have always found it ridiculous how American white kids dress-up and act like gangsters who in turn aspire to the privileges of the super-rich, mostly white, of the world and their elite club. Before, I thought that somehow the class-system, however determined, will start to fade. I’ve had the privilege to meet people from both extremes of the spectrum and have come to the conclusion that all are fundamentally human. There are very rich people who are incredible human beings and then those that I don’t want to share a meal for what they do to their loved-ones. The same applies to very poor people. But what you cannot get past is the privilege that money buys; the best of everything. The latest privilege that the rich seems to have chosen is the privilege to not to mix with the great unwashed – again. The latest edition of Newsweek is a special edition covering the exploits of the super-rich and I have honestly never been this jealous. According to Newsweek, the elite does not want to shop with us – they arrange private shopping trips after hours, chefs are rented to cook in private dining halls – heaven forbid we step on their Pradas, the profession of the professional butler has experienced an enormous revival and these servants get paid more than a middle manager at a financial company – the list goes on for pages as special editions do.

The question is what is next? Because, at the same time that the rich are closing their circle to mere plebs, for the first time in the history of America, people are starting to question the capitalist ideal of the American Dream. Where once immense wealth was aspired to and admired, many among their populous are starting to resent obscene wealth, especially considering the specialized healthcare that it buys. It seems that Marie-Antoinette has once again ordered the poor to eat cake and they may take her head for it, if they can get past her billion dollar private security force. Yes, Marie-Antoinette is back and in a better position to protect herself and her wealth. Or is she?

My question is why people want access to this club? Surely if no-one wants access there would be no point in being elite? Of course it’s not that simple, wealth perpetuates wealth and yes Marie, we do need to eat in a time when economies are struggling and the individual is not doing well on its own. This is why Schumpeter agreed with Marx that the capitalist system will collapse but for a different reason: capitalism is an economic success but not a social success. In a capitalist world, when things go wrong the poor who is most affected are driven to horrific protests like the French revolution and the recent xenophobic attacks (although there is no justification for the extreme evil committed in the past week). I’m hoping that the real revolution will be found in Thomas Friedman’s new book entitled The World is Flat. It entails the empowerment of the individual through technology so that the playing field between the common individual and the large corporations, owned by the elite, is leveled. That would be the true revolution that will stop the ever repeating circle of the rich versus the poor – or at least temper it with a broadening middle class. May this be the end of a trend that has repeated over eons and the beginning of an entirely new trend in the history of the world.