$700 Millionaire Bono: Capitalism a ‘Wild Beast’ that Needs to Be ‘Tamed’

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA: Irish rocker Bono, lead singer of U2 is pictured at the Love L
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Justin Caruso

Bono, a rock icon and activist reportedly worth around $700 million, said this week that capitalism is a “wild beast” that has to be “tamed.”

“Capitalism is not immoral — it’s amoral. It requires our instruction,” Bono told the World Economic Forum.

“Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ‘ism.’ But, it is a wild beast, and, if not tamed, it can chew up a lot of people along the way,” the U2 frontman said.

“And in fact, those people’s lives that it has chewed up, are pushing the politics in our homes towards populism, and so I think we have to think about the private sector, but we have to have some humility, about what we can achieve in the private sector.”

Indeed, Bono has shown his distaste for populism and conservatism before. In 2017, he called President Donald Trump “a post-truth president leading a post-trust country.”

He also lamented the rise of populism in Europe, saying, “We got shook. Even in Europe, people have forgotten what fascism did to them. Whether it was fascism described as Stalin or Mao in the state communism, whatever you want to call it. It is forgotten.”

“We are actually going back to the way we used to be. The new normal is the old normal. That is terrifying. The demonizing of ‘the other’ has returned,” the 58-year-old said.

In 2018, the left-wing activist dressed as the devil and implied that European populists were like him and were arriving on the continent.

“My people [devils] are arriving all over Europe,” he said.

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