"Greed, for deficiency of a better word, is good." Gordon Gekko's words from the movie Wall Street is 1 of the most recognizable quotes in cinema history, frequently treated as a synthesis of modern capitalism. However, this is not the most interesting part of his celebrated monologue.
As Peter Bloom and Carl Rhodes rightly note in the book World by Presidents, more interesting are the words Gekko said moments later: “Greed – remember my words – not only will they save Teldar Paper, but they will besides save another badly functioning corp called the United States”.
The state is fundamentally specified a larger company – this thought dominated modern political imagination. And it has disastrous consequences for our societies.
First specified president
Among another things, the state's metaphor as a company results in the belief that if a individual succeeds in business, he is perfectly suited to the management of a given country. erstwhile Bloom and Rhodes were writing their book, the United States election was first won by Donald Trump. No wonder, then, that he became a symbol of this transformation for them.
In fresh years, many have been written about Trump: that he is simply a populist, narcissist, a proponent of conspiracy theories. 1 thing eludes most of the analyses — the fact that Trump is the first president of the United States who has never held any political function before taking office.
In the past of the United States, there were already presidents who began their careers in non-political competitions. Ronald Reagan was a Western actor. But even before he went to the White House, he held the office of politician of California for 8 years. Trump, meanwhile, jumped straight from the business planet and inexpensive amusement to the highest political position in the country.
One of Trump's key assets was his business successes – real or supposed. During the election campaign, he repeatedly emphasized his wealth, which was expected to prove how fit he was to be president. This argument proved convincing adequate that to this day the poll behind the poll shows that "economic competences" are according to voters Trump's strongest asset.
It's notable how Hillary Clinton tried to undermine Trump's communicative in 2016, mocking his success in business is greatly exaggerated. Bloom and Rhodes rightly see that Clinton should have pointed to something completely different: success in business does not substance erstwhile it comes to moving a state. moving a country is more than making money for yourself and shareholders. This is the work for the safety and well-being of hundreds of millions of people.
Period over ‘i’
Today, 8 years after Trump's first victory, we have an even better example to illustrate that the metaphor of the state as a corp is rooted in our consciousness: Elon Musk. Trump had to go through the conventional electoral process after all: first to win in the Republican Party's primaries and then the main electoral clash with the Democratic Party.
Musk showed that you could skip this stage.
First bought a communication platform with immense money, which is Twitter, gaining influence on global public debate. He then invested $130 million in Donald Trump's campaign, which provided him with access to 1 of the most influential politicians in the world. After Trump won, it shortly turned out that Musk was 1 of highest people around him. He helps fill the cabinet, participates in global negotiations, is to get his own department and sets goals for the fresh administration.
The political success of Musk would not have been possible if society had not accepted the uncritical communicative of corporate governance. A controversial billionaire is simply a logical consequence of this cultural trend – a dot over "i". At the same time, it is the best proof of how – for deficiency of a better word – This trend is ridiculous..
It is not only a scale but besides a way of engaging with erstwhile billionaires who influence politics. "The difference is that Musk is doing this in the full light of public attention and in addition assumes something like democratic validation of his actions" – says historian Benjamin Soskis.
That's right! Not only in what influence Musk bought himself, but besides how many people accept it, and even treat it as a desirable development. Like they want to say, "Let Musk save a badly-acting corp called the United States."
Not so stupid, that Musk.
Trends request to be used.
Critics Muska frequently make a serious mistake: they underestimate his achievements, treating them as a coincidence or a fluke effect. You most likely know the story. Musk did not invent Tesla, but bought it from the 2 engineers who founded it (in addition, dangerous fires frequently happen in vehicles of this brand). SpaceX is based on skyrocketing subsidies from the state, due to the fact that the U.S. government entrusts the company with tasks that NASA had previously performed. The investment in Twitter proved to be a financial fiasco – Musk melted over $40 billion into a platform that is most likely worth half of that sum today.
But...
Tesla and SpaceX are 1 of the most crucial companies in the planet today, and Musk dominated space exploration. Even if Twitter, renamed X, is not a business success, it has undoubtedly become an effective political tool. The platform played a key function in Donald Trump's run and seemingly fulfilled its task.
Musk managed to usage his business activity to gain a position that even before Trump's election made him 1 of the most crucial figures in American politics. How noted Ronan Farrow in a study for “New Yorker”, any Pentagon employees and another government agencies treated Musk as an unofficial state official!
It may be time to admit: Musk has the uncommon ability to “do things”. And that makes him peculiarly dangerous.
The owner of the X-a has perfectly grasped that idealizing business leaders can be utilized politically. It is not by chance that he proposed Trump to make the Department of Government Efficiency, which he and the entrepreneur headed. Vivek Ramaswamy. And most likely there is not a second bottom in this name, under which lies the mockery: The Department of Government Efficiency is DOGE, or mememic "song", but besides the cryptocurrency in which Musk invests.
Supporters of Musk are already enjoying the imagination in which he will show that you can manage the state as he managed Twitter after buying it – by firing most employees and cutting costs into power. Similarly, as Trump “managed” imaginary business in the tv reality-show The Apprentice, gaining large designation over respective years.
If we were not engulfed by the metaphor of the state as a company, we would see the absurdity of this communicative more easily. Managing a digital platform that employs respective 1000 people, and managing a fewer 100 million countries are completely different challenges. If...
Musk besides learned another lesson from Trump's success: people hatred the elite, so it is best to pretend to be an outsider who is not part of the system, but alternatively fights and constantly criticizes him – a lesson that, by the way, Democrats inactive can't do.
That's why Musk, a erstwhile Hollywood pet who appeared in Marvel movies and smart sitcoms like The large Pickup Theory, began criticizing the movie manufacture for promoting "woke virusIt’s okay. ” This is why without pardon he attacks mainstream media present – the same ones that helped advance him as a expected genius. "Now you are the media," he repeats to his Twitter fans, mocking CNN, "New York Times" and another leading media.
It seems that this mixture of "billion-celebrity-outsider" is full of contradictions, but in the hands of a capable fake trader – like Musk – works.
Thank you, Uncle Sam.
When we halt treating Musk like a clown who's about to stumble on his legs, we'll yet realize the scale of the threat. The richest man in the planet just bought himself a place in the White House. And only the biggest naïve man can inactive think Musk has a small bit of a right.
For the last respective months, Musk's platform had a simple rule: if individual wants to advance a right-wing conspiracy theory, then the celebrated billionaire will most likely aid him.
The Democratic organization brings illegal immigrants to replace the "real" American voters? Here you go, Musk will be happy to go on and comment in the right style: interesting, disturbing, people should know that.
Electoral forgery against Trump? Of course Musk will be active in promoting this theory.
Or do you want to advance TheoryThat the U.S. national Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) isn't helping hurricane victims due to the fact that she's besides busy bringing in illegal immigrants? Musk will help.
And no, unfortunately, a controversial billionaire is not just an interior nuisance to the United States. The U.S. is inactive a powerful and powerful state that everyone who exercises power there is acting on the remainder of the world.
Musk loves to interfere in matters of another countries. erstwhile anti-immigrant riots occurred in Britain, Musk immediately began commenting on his platform. He promoted The British right-wing communicative that migrants are guilty of themselves, and accused the British government of unfairly treating protesters.
On a akin basis He was accusing The German government besides said that it was besides open to migrants and that Canada, Brazil or Italy were included in its list of targets. Each time the script was similar: Musk utilized his authority and multimillion scope to support the position of the far right and incite people against his disliked politicians.
Nor should it be forgotten that at 1 time Musk He's been bragging. his thought of solving the war in Ukraine. This solution was suspiciously beneficial to Russia.
Remember that Musk is not just a war watcher – his Starlink satellites are a key component in the clash of both armies. Trump's win only increased his influence on this issue – We know For example, after Trump's victory, Musk took part in a telephone conversation between the President-elect and the president of Ukraine. We besides know that as early as 2022 Starlink limited Ukraine's ability to usage its satellites to attack Russian positions. Billionaire Elon Musk de facto runs his own private abroad policy before inactive receiving a ministerial nomination from Trump.
In view of specified developments, the remainder of the planet cannot take a comfortable position of the viewer, who, with a mix of amusement and disgust, watches what happens on the American political scene. The Americans dragged us all into this mess. That's why it's in all our interests to find a way out.
Politics needed for yesterday
To realize what this way of exit might look like, 1 must first realize why probusiness and anti-elitarianism have found specified a hearing.
In short, we are dealing with common losing religion in democracy, and even more so – in politics.
People have a legitimate sense that the most crucial decisions are made above their heads – by technocratic elites. And all effort to do something large is ridiculed by these elites as utopian, ridiculous, threatening.
The United States is an excellent example of this. The polls show that most Americans would be willing to tax, and this, solidly, wealthiest countrymen and major corporations, would rise minimum wage and introduce universal public wellness protection. But they keep proceeding that it's a dream. You're crazy, you want to end up like the russian Union or Venezuela?
Europe cannot boast either any peculiarly awesome reforms. It's like she fired all her bold ideas at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Public services, universal wellness insurance, pensions and pensions, 40-hour work week, trade unions, paid leave – these are all over a century of ideas!
People like Musk prey on this political powerlessness. If there's nothing we can do, if we're controlled by technocrats, then let's support the 1 who seems the most powerful, the craziest, the most inclined to system imbalance. Let something change.
This is 1 of the most grim testimonies of the state of our democracy: that voters give power over and over to unpredictable oligarchs, choosing to jump into the unknown and hope to "reprise" all the institutions of the state. Many voters have been able to convince that eccentric billionaires are the last hotel to perjury in our world. This is the summit of their political hopes: counting on any CEO to revolutionize their country-company.
At the same time, this gloomy punch line contains a message of hope.
Take distant Musk's most powerful weapon
Of course, we can number on Musk to make a mistake, for example, in a dispute with Trump, who can rapidly turn into a war between magnates. But even if Musk is yet swindled, individual fresh will jump into his place, who will usage the same disappointment with democracy, the same delight over wealthy businessmen and the same dislike of political elites. Therefore, the most effective solution would be to knock out Musk's most powerful tool – disappointment with politics.
Actually, all political group has something to think about.
Moderate and centralist politicians, as well as mainstream political commentators, must yet ask themselves: if the consequence of our fear of a large political change is people like Musk and Trump, then possibly we are not as sensible as we thought we were.
What more radical, left-wing and anarchist activists should ask themselves another question: does their full criticism of politics as fields of games of corrupt elites have the other effect?
Instead of leading to a grassroots, spontaneous, universal and truly democratic revolution, this criticism seems to support a cynical imagination of politics. Political cynicism leads many people, not to support the progressive social revolution, but to the conclusion that is in the hands of people like Musk: since all politicians and all parties suck, we can besides vote for a powerful, efficient businessman to take the place of the inept political elite.
Unfortunately, in the capitalism of the gap left by political parties do not fill bottom-up civic movements, and billionaire populists who have money, influence and their own propaganda channels.
It would be large if a small more “reasonable heads” opened up to bold, pro-social political reforms, and a small more activists dreaming of revolution—to a hard and frustrating collaboration with the most promising parties and politicians, although they are never perfect.
If the erstwhile had given up on the stupid symmetrism kind “on the 1 hand a billionaire in conchachts with the far right, but on the another hand activists with all this basic income or higher taxes for the rich, so here and here extreme.” And if the others stopped pretending that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was as weak a choice as Joe Biden (and Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk as bad as Donald Tusk) and that Joe Biden was as far distant from them as Trump and Musk.
The postwar alliance of socialists, liberals and conservatives brought us a state of prosperity. Far imperfect but the best political community organization so far in modern edition. The alliance of “reasonable heads” and “revolutionaries” could aid us to break the destructive trend of policy oligarchisation – if possible.
