What would a socialist Wall Street look like? Xi Jinping just told us

What would a socialist Wall Street look like? Well, no need to wonder anymore: Xi Jinping released a speech in which he explains exactly this.

Made in January 2024 but published just 3 days ago (together with an accompanying commentary piece and a more detailed editorial), Xi’s speech has been widely quoted in Western media these past few days because he explicitly calls for the Yuan to “possess global reserve currency status” (全球储备货币).

But, as is often the case, the media are actually missing the forest for the trees by reducing the speech to a simplistic call about challenging the dollar. What Xi described is actually much more interesting than this: it's a sweeping vision for building a global financial power organized around socialist principles, without the greed and without a financialization of the economy (what Xi calls 脱实向虚, “drifting from the real economy into the virtual”).

In essence, Wall Street but with the opposite philosophy.