Historically, its advocates have argued that capitalism makes everyone better off by creating wealth for everyone. Businesses make profits, and they invest these profits in future production. This creates jobs, which raise living standards for the majority of the population. Such a system might lead to rising inequality in the short term but, as entrepreneurs reinvest their profits, eventually this wealth will trickle down to everyone else. Whilst this has always been an optimistic reading of the way capitalism works, during the post-war period it often appeared to reflect reality (at least in the global North). But finance-led growth upsets the channels through which wealth is supposed to trickle down from rich to poor, and it does so in obvious ways. Investment slows, wages fall, and profits — especially financial profits — boom.