The Tyranny of Intermediaries: The Value Illusion in the Service Economy
"We want to tokenize bonds and stocks, tokenize private funds. We want to eliminate all intermediaries." – Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, Davos 2024
Larry Fink's declaration reverberates like a radical manifesto through the plush corridors of Davos, where the global economic elite gathers annually to define the contours of tomorrow's capitalism. The paradox is striking: while the leader of the world's largest asset manager announces the end of intermediaries, entire cohorts of brilliant young graduates are rushing into this very path, convinced they'll find the professional Holy Grail.
This contradiction has obsessed me for some time because it touches on a fundamental question: what truly creates value in our modern economy? My conviction, forged through observation and experience, is that the service industry, in its current configuration, is not the engine but the brake on our economic growth.
I can't help but connect the chronic anemia of French growth since 2010-2011 with this quasi-religious veneration for intermediary professions, at the expense of those who shape, invent, and build. This article explores what I call the "validation economy" — one that approves rather than creates.
I. The Silent Reign of the Intermediary
The service economy, as I understand it here, isn't limited to the classic distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. It more specifically designates that constellation of economic actors whose added value essentially rests on intermediation, validation, and expertise disconnected from direct production.
Imagine the economy as a theater play. Intermediaries would be those characters who, without being either authors or lead actors, comment on the play, advise the actors, analyze the dialogues, without ever setting foot on stage themselves. Their influence has become so considerable that they sometimes rewrite the script without fully understanding the dramatic art.
In France, this sector has experienced spectacular expansion, growing from 70% of GDP in 2000 to nearly 80% today. The number of consultants has exploded, increasing by 84% since 2010, while external consulting expenditures by CAC 40 companies climbed by 67%. These figures aren't trivial; they testify to a profound transformation of our economic fabric, where people now prefer to advise rather than do, audit rather than create.
II. The Normalization of the Extraordinary
What was once the exception has become the norm. This metamorphosis occurred so subtly that we've barely noticed it. Today, a CEO who doesn't surround himself with a court of strategic consultants would be seen as a heretic. A minister who doesn't commission a study from a prestigious firm before each decision would be perceived as an amateur. A company that develops its expertise internally rather than outsourcing it would be considered archaic.
This evolution first crystallized in Western metropolises — Paris, London, New York — before gradually conquering the entire economic landscape. It has primarily concentrated at the top of the social and educational pyramid: graduates from elite schools and prestigious universities now consider these careers a mandatory passage, even the natural culmination of their education.
At École Polytechnique, HEC, or Sciences Po, joining McKinsey, BCG, or Bain has become the new French dream, replacing the ambition to build bridges, manage factories, or invent tomorrow's technologies. This phenomenon, which might seem anecdotal, is actually symptomatic of a profound reorientation of our national talents.
Today, the consulting market is dominated by a few major players who exert disproportionate influence. Five international firms capture more than 30% of the global market, constituting an intellectual oligopoly whose grip extends to all economic spheres, from private to public. In some Parisian schools, more than 40% of graduates join these structures, a figure that should alert us to the concentration of our best minds.
III. The Metastases of the Model
This system of generalized intermediation has generated three major consequences that profoundly alter our economic fabric.
The first is unprecedented institutional deresponsibilization. Decision-makers, protected by the umbrella of external recommendations, can now absolve themselves of their failures by invoking the authority of "experts." "It's not my idea, it's McKinsey's" becomes the perfect excuse to justify risky policies or failing strategies. This dilution of responsibility erodes the decision-making capacity of our institutions and encourages a form of managerial cowardice disguised as prudence.
The second consequence, even more pernicious, is the deliberate obscuring of economic and managerial discourse. Consulting firms have elevated to an art form the creation of hermetic language, populated with mysterious acronyms and abstruse concepts. This jargon isn't innocent: it aims to maintain the illusion of superior and inaccessible expertise. Anyone who has attended a presentation riddled with "pain points," "scalability," and "best practices" understands this strategy of linguistic dazzlement that often masks the banality of the underlying recommendations.
But the third consequence, arguably the most serious for our collective future, is the systematic absorption of the most promising talents by these intermediation industries. Our brightest engineers, our most analytical minds, our most ambitious graduates are diverted from the direct creation of value to become high priests of a consulting church that multiplies sermons but builds few cathedrals.
This massive diversion of human capital represents a gigantic opportunity cost for our economy. These young people could invent, build, transform — instead, they find themselves presenting slides and drafting recommendations that will often be forgotten the day after their presentation. The irony is that they are generally brilliant, hardworking, and well-intentioned — but their talent is channeled into a system that privileges the appearance of value rather than its actual creation.
IV. The International Contrast: A Revealing Mirror
This trajectory toward an economy dominated by intermediation isn't universal. The contrast with other economic models is striking and instructive.
In the United States, despite the undeniable importance of Wall Street and the influence of consulting firms, there persists a culture that deeply values direct entrepreneurship and tangible innovation. Silicon Valley wasn't born from PowerPoints, but from garages where visionaries tinkered with the future. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs didn't build their empires by consulting, but by creating. This cultural difference translates into telling figures: the United States has 7.5 times more unicorns per capita than Europe and invests 3.5% of its GDP in research and development, compared to 2.1% in France.
China, for its part, has adopted a strategy diametrically opposed to our service drift. Intuitively understanding that economic power rests on tangible production, it has methodically developed its industrial apparatus while limiting the influence of unproductive intermediaries. The result is spectacular: in a few decades, China has become the world's factory and, gradually, its innovation laboratory. While we multiplied reports on reindustrialization, China was patiently manufacturing the products that now flood our markets.
Europe, and particularly France, seems to have taken the opposite path. We've emptied our companies of their technical expertise by delegating it to external consultants who then resell it to the highest bidder. We've placed at the head of our technical organizations generalist managers, often themselves from consulting backgrounds, who boast of being able to indifferently direct a bank, a hospital, or an automobile factory. This disconnection between know-how and decision-making power has engendered a form of organizational schizophrenia: those who know don't decide, and those who decide don't know.
V. The Beginnings of a Productive Renaissance
Should we despair? I don't think so. Several signals, still weak but promising, indicate a possible reversal of this deleterious trend.
The first comes, paradoxically, from the very heart of global finance. When Larry Fink, at the helm of the planet's largest asset manager, announces his desire to "eliminate all intermediaries" through tokenization, he isn't just promoting technological innovation — he's implicitly recognizing that the proliferation of intermediaries has become an obstacle to economic efficiency.
The ongoing technological revolution could well be the catalyst for a profound redefinition of economic value. Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and other innovations promise to automate a large part of the functions currently performed by human intermediaries. This automation won't destroy value but redistribute it to those who create the underlying systems and infrastructures.
In parallel, we observe a gradual return to the valorization of the tangible. The health crisis and geopolitical tensions have brutally reminded us of the strategic importance of national productive capacities. No longer being able to produce essential masks or medicines has constituted a salutary electroshock for our Western economies, too confident in the virtues of international specialization and financialization.
Finally, the democratization of access to information and training tools directly threatens the monopoly of traditional intermediaries. When expertise becomes accessible to all, the economic premium associated with its exclusive possession inevitably erodes. This dynamic could favor the emergence of independent experts and direct collaboration networks that bypass traditional intermediaries.
Conclusion: Reinventing Our Conception of Value
The paradox of our era is striking: at the very moment when the most powerful financial actors announce the end of intermediaries, we collectively continue to venerate them and guide our best talents toward these careers.
For Europe, and particularly for France, the issue is existential. Will we continue to produce armies of consultants who will meticulously document our economic decline? Or will we know how to redirect our vital forces toward the direct creation of value, whether industrial, technological, or cultural?
The answer to this question will determine not only our economic trajectory but also our place in a world where, more than ever, power belongs to those who create and not to those who comment. The validation economy may have reached its peak; it's time to rehabilitate the economy of doing.
Larry Fink's declaration isn't just a vision of the future for finance — it's a warning for all our Western economies. Intermediaries who don't bring substantial value will inevitably be swept away by the wave of innovation and economic reconfiguration that's coming. It's up to us to decide whether we want to be the architects or the spectators of this transformation.
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Catch you soon!
Love that sentence: “those who know don't decide, and those who decide don't know.”
Spot on mate 😉
👏👏