Trump’s victory shows power of greed and the ultra rich

 

The US presidential election is over, and it’s time for recrimination among the losers. Among the explanations offered for Kamala Harris’s defeat is one that says an increasing number of Americans believe their government is the source of all their problems.

These people fervently believe that “big government”, within which lies the “deep state”, that cabal of powerful, unelected bureaucrats act against the interests of the American people.

If this is indeed the reason behind the loss, then it’s bad news for the long-term prospects of the losing Democrats, the party that believes the government is a critical factor to solving many of society’s problems.

In a country that emphasises personal liberty and the pursuit of the “American Dream”, many view the US federal government, with its laws and regulations, as an obstacle to achieving their destiny. That makes the government their enemy that must be dealt with.

The winners are already working to scale down the federal government in the name of unleashing the energy of the people currently held in check by bureaucracy and regulations. If these anti-big-government Republicans get their way, whatever government is left will be a pale shadow of its former self.

Whether that’s for the better or worse depends on how you see the world. What seems clear though is the presidential election was won by pure, unbridled greed, manifested by the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the billionaire-class. This triumph of the ultra-rich proves yet again that money can indeed buy power.

Are governments innocent of these accusations? Certainly not. Organised governments, having existed for so long, especially in the more mature western democracies, are bound to have developed instincts of self-preservation that result in bloat, overreach and in some instances downright toxicity.

Seeking order from chaos

While there was always some form of government in olden days – tax collectors and henchmen of kings and tyrants – the idea of a professional class of public servants (the “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” of Abraham Lincoln) is relatively new.

It’s become a critical component of democratic systems, where apolitical, professional public servants serve the citizens, guided by the ideology of the prevailing political wind certainly but also bound by checks and balances such as their oaths to uphold their constitutions and laws.

So, governments are the result of an almost unnatural desire by humans to have order and justice instead of the dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest worlds of earlier human societies.

Capitalism, on the other hand, has existed way before it was defined by Adam Smith. The understanding that power – in this case wealth – begets more power has always been part of the human instinct.

So generally, the end of the absolute power of monarchies led to systems of governments, and the laws and regulations that go with them, to shield society from the worst of human greed. In fact, in the more extreme Leninist-Marxist utopias, it’s an effort to destroy greed altogether.

Obviously the communism model didn’t work – witness the failure of such experiments with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even in the largest surviving “communist” society, the People’s Republic of China, the communist economic model has capitulated to capitalism in all but name.

Warren Buffet on class warfare

It feels like we’re back to days of class warfare again, with the majority pitted against the ultra-rich few. The irony is the power they bought with their wealth nowadays comes through the support of the people who stand to lose the most when all is said and done.

Who’s winning the class war then? Here’s what Warren Buffett, one of the richest humans on earth, has to say about this: “There’s a class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Buffet isn’t gloating about the winning ways of his class. He’s actually bemoaning it, seeing the rise of many ultra-rich who lack the desire to accept the responsibility that comes with great wealth.

He said that in 2006, and since then the war has become more vicious and lopsided. As in many other things – social norms, the climate, geopolitics etc – the rich never really have to lay out any credible plans that can be rationally judged by the electorates. They just need to build straw men, sow confusion, feed the outrage and pick at the innate selfishness all humans have, and voila! they’re in.

This is perhaps a uniquely American issue, of a people who pride themselves on exceptionalism and the frontier spirit, and who have always found rules and structures accepted by many other societies as onerous and perhaps even illegitimate. They’re willing to dismantle what they consider government overreach, even if it means destroying much of what we have today.

The victors here are the ultra-rich, who have seen their vast wealth grow by leaps and bounds, often regardless, or perhaps because of, pandemics or wars or inflationary forces and other aspects of human misery.

Toxic meritocracy

I don’t quite buy the argument that the rich deserve their massive power. This is an argument for toxic meritocracy – that because they’re rich it means they’ve earned the right to lord it over others not as rich. And many not as rich buy that argument because they too aspire to be rich one day.

Today’s billionaires often become rich by being harmful to society – exploiting fossil fuels in spite of certain knowledge that they’re bad to human existence; selling arms that encourage conflicts; or manipulating much of society through the powerful presence of the digital realm.

Not as many jobs are created by these people compared to jobs that they destroyed on the way to becoming rich. Not much wealth is created for others compared to the wealth they created for themselves. While most of their wealth is paper wealth, it is potent nonetheless.

Anyway, where does that leave us here in Malaysia?

Certainly, we also have our corrupt capitalist class that buys politics in order to become even richer. However, our corruption is mostly rather old-fashioned – poor people use politics to become rich, whereas in America it’s about already rich people who decide to flex their wealth to corrupt their politics to become even richer.

That’s probably where we are heading, though there are many signs that we may already be there. Think of instances where the ultra-rich people buy the politicians so that they can become even more obscenely rich, all at our expense.

Hooray for progress and development…I think! - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.