Ray Dalio warns that the rules‑based order is now over, putting monetary debasement, dollar risk and neutral, permissionless financial rails back at the center of the macro conversation.
Ray Dalio warned that the post-World War II order has “officially broken down,” with the world now sliding into what he bluntly calls a “law of the jungle” phase, where power, not rules, decides outcomes, and crypto investors are using the moment to renew the case for assets designed to operate outside state control.
In his latest article on X describing both internal and external disorder, the Bridgewater Associates founder wrote that great powers are now locked in a persistent “prisoner’s dilemma.” They must either escalate or look weak across trade, technology, capital flows and, increasingly, military flashpoints, making what he calls “stupid wars” frighteningly easy to trigger.
That external disorder tends to collide with internal stress, Dalio said. When economies are under strain and wealth gaps are wide, governments reliably reach for higher taxes and “big increases in the supply of money” that devalue existing claims rather than pushing explicit defaults.
