Cow does wealth manage to persuade the poor to use their political freedom to keep it in power? By asking this illuminating question in 1952, Welsh Labor Aneurin Bevan put his finger on the greatest paradox of liberal democracy. In the era of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, JD Vance and their Big Tech peers, the absurdity exposed by this Bevan paradox has become even more glaring.
Observe the elaborate conspiracy of the emerging “broligarchy” [de « bro », diminutif de brother, frère, et oligarchie. La broligarchie désigne le groupe de milliardaires masculins qui, animés par une idéologie toxique, entoure le projet trumpiste] with a view to extracting as much wealth and power as possible from Donald Trump's second term is legitimately nauseating. Having amassed colossal fortunes through government and military procurement, while working tirelessly to dismantle government programs providing meager protection to the poor, these men banded together at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to kiss the ring of Donald Trump and prepare to directly exercise governmental power.
From their point of view, the deal they struck with the president-elect is a tremendous deal, with an unparalleled rate of return on investment. For a few hundred million dollars invested in Trump's re-election, they amassed, a few minutes after his victory, additional wealth amounting to hundreds of billions! The value of Palantir, Peter Thiel's group, soared 23%, while the stock of Elon Musk's Tesla jumped 40%, reaching a market capitalization greater than that of the fifteen largest automakers. world combined.
Exorbitant power
In exchange for a few crumbs from their fortune, this Big Tech fraternity is receiving three extraordinary gifts: enormous public contracts; the elimination of regulatory safeguards against the dangers of their methods and products – autonomous vehicles, “bots” and drones driven by uncontrolled artificial intelligence (AI), massive increases in electricity consumption; finally, immense negotiating power, legitimized by the State, in their exchanges with workers, suppliers, competitors and the rest of us.
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