Dow Chemical’s Andrew Liveris says globalisation has failed too many people, and has called for the free market model and way of thinking to be overhauled.

“Market-based economies were leading us to conclusions that were short-term oriented and part of the money society that was leaving people behind,” said Australian-born Liveris.

“I think that is the bubble that just burst. I think part of it is the arrival of the popular vote that said, ‘Just a second, the money economy has created an elite class, call it a global class, call it a very, very one per cent class, and the middle class has atrophied’.”

He proposed the idea at a lunch hosted by the US Studies Centre on Wednesday, in the company of policymakers and the business community.

He expressed his concerns over the rich getting richer and the middle class heading towards poverty, where they find themselves unable to afford a basic standard of living and worry that their kids will not have what they had.

“World leaders are being compelled, more than ever before, to listen to the people for whom globalisation has brought pain, not prosperity,” he said, adding that only new forms of “inclusive capitalism” and “fair trade” would be able to sustain the benefits of open economies and globalisation.

The CEO also highlighted the lack of long-term cycle investment and strategic planning that he says is an issue in the US, UK, and Australia in comparison to economies in Singapore, China, and Germany.

To implement such a model, he said ‘regrouping’ would be required to move towards more inclusive capitalism that would see multi-stakeholders brought into the equation while also making jobs and opportunities affordable.

Liveris has also been appointed head of the American business leaders’ group advising President Trump on reviving manufacturing in the US, and has praised the Trump administration for being an “interventionist” government determined to make changes.

At an upcoming STEM Solutions National Leadership Conference in San Diego. Liveris is due to receive the US News Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Leadership Hall of Fame Award.