Doing good and doing well in business

When the financial crisis threatened to topple the global economy, my Russian friends took great delight in calling me from Moscow and sharing the bittersweet response that was making the rounds of a city that always laughs loudest when things go wrong: Everything Marx told us about communism was false, the gag went, but everything he told us about capitalism was true.

In 2008, it was easy to see their point. The lopsided recovery hasn’t brought much comfort, either.

Across Western Europe and North America, corporate profits and stock prices have rebounded, but the middle class is more squeezed than ever.