Albert Edwards, the long-standing strategist at Société Générale known for offering the “alternative view” within the institution, believes the recent political success of figures like Zohran Mamdani signal the corporate sector’s self-inflicted backlash against “greedflation.” Edwards, whose career in finance dates back to 1982 and who hasn’t been aligned with the “house view” of his investment bank for many years now, has gained a sort of cult following for his skeptical approach to market narratives, once famously writing a note about how appalled he was by “greedflation,” or record profit margins against the backdrop of post-pandemic inflation. He described it as the “end of capitalism” in 2023, and in conversation with Fortune, absolutely stood by his point.
At that time, Edwards said, inflation was generally being blamed on raw material prices because of the Ukraine war, as well as the labor market, with very few people saying there was profit-driven inflation, but he took a different view: “This is unprecedented,” he noted, pointing out, “when unit costs rise, always, unit margins fall, always, in history.” He said that shouldn’t have happened, and the reason it did was because of so much stimulus from the government that “companies could get away with doing it, using [inflation as] cover.”
