Warnings About Oligarchy Fall On Deaf Ears
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I suspect that many of the people that voted for Trump would struggle to spell oligarchy let alone grasp its meaning. Hey, those Big Tech bros are cool guys and wouldn’t it be great to be like them. This sentiment may well capture the popular mood among many younger Americans. President Joe Biden’s outgoing speech to the nation was highlighted by warnings about oligarchy. It seems, warnings about oligarchy fall on deaf ears at the moment. Explaining about the importance of having a separation between government and big business should be fairly nondescript. The general American ignorance about how government works is pretty disturbing. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-16/oligarchy-taking-shape-in-america-joe-biden-/104824806
Oligarchic Alarm Bells Going Off, Warns Biden
Weak governments produce overly powerful private interests. Power abhors a vacuum. Putting billionaires in positions where they directly influence economic decisions taken by the government is a recipe for the corporate takeover of government. Private armies and militias are already emerging from decades of neoliberal rule. The weakening of the state means more corruption and misuse of power by oligarchs. You know, when the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR broke apart in 1991 the US advised Boris Yeltsin on the best way to form a new style of democratic government. Those political and economic advisers went over there and organised the creation of these oligarchs. Created out of the privatisation of Soviet assets like oil and gas and energy utilities. Millionaires and soon, billionaires were generated and these guys were a ring around the democratically elected government. The power, the real power was vested in these oligarchs so that the West could do business with them. This was the accelerated capitalism put in place by the West. The Russians were supposed to be learning from the American model.
America Taking An Oligarchic Leaf Out Of Russia
Of late, however, it is Trump and American big business copying the Russian oligarchic model. Unchecked influence and power being exerted by the Elon Musk’s, Jeff Bezos’ and Mark Zuckerberg’s is the new world order. Especially, as warnings about oligarchy fall on deaf ears. Vladimir Putin has killed off a number of the oligarchs around him and replaced them with more amenable chaps, I suspect. It will be interesting to see how the American oligarchs around Trump will get on. It is no wonder that the Trump and Putin bromance represents an aligning of authoritarian states. Russia leads the way and get ready for corruption levels to go ballistic in the US under Trump 2.0.
Civil Unrest Looks Likely In America
Trump the reality TV, fake billionaire has assembled an executive cabinet largely taken from TV land, Fox News in the main. Appointing to top jobs individuals with no real world experience in their field is a sure fire recipe for dysfunctional government. If the public service below them is gutted and replaced with yes men and women America is in for a collapse of empire. Civil unrest will be on the cards and what the police and security agencies do about that will be pretty important in terms of where it all lands. Revolution is not out of the question. Young people everywhere are sick of being ripped off by the economic setup created by the baby boomer generation. Rents are unaffordable. Property prices out of reach for many. Basic food items have been too expensive for too long.
The murder of Brian Thompson the UnitedHealthcare CEO may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Ordinary people are being fleeced by Big Tech and their rentier subscription economic model. You have to pay to use everything but never actually own anything. The devices, the software and access to the digital files are all tied up in a very tight bow. This model is being extended to everything in our lives. Workers are being screwed continuously, as are consumers now, as CEO’s and their companies increase profitability for their shareholders. These giant corporations are making hundreds of billions annually while we are turned over again and again.
Weaker governments with less regulatory powers can do nothing about this state of affairs. This is why it is likely that civil revolution will be forced to bust up this grossly unfair economic setup. History tells us that extreme imbalances of wealth always end in revolution.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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