The dangers of plutocratic pettiness

Silicon Valley sultans are angry at politics, with some billionaires suddenly turning against Democrats.

Not only that Elon Musk.

Other well -known players, including Jeff Bezoscriticized the Biden administration, and now we know that Larry Ellison of Oracle talked to Sean Hannity and Lindsey Graham about cancellation of 2020 elections.

The timing of some tech aristocrats making this radical turn to the right is remarkable because of what is going on in American politics.

It’s hard, for example, to imagine what kind of bubble Musk lives in that he could declare the Democrats the “party of division and hatred” during the time of Tucker Carlson, who was not a politician but remains one of the most influential figures. in the modern Republican Party, devotes show after show to “replacement theory””, the claim that liberal elites are deliberately bringing immigrants to the United States to expel white voters.

Polls show that nearly half of Republicans agree with this theory.

Plutocrats who criticize Democrats are also notoriously small; Nothing says “visionary industry titan” like sending shit emojis.

But being pettiness may be central to political history.

What’s happening here, I would say, isn’t primarily about greed (though that’s also it).

Rather, it is paramount fragile egos.

Certainly some real economic interests are at stake.

Democrats have proposed new taxes on the rich, while the President Joe Biden he named officials known for promoting stronger antitrust policy.

It’s also true that tech stocks have fallen significantly in recent months, reducing the wealth of the role of tycoons like Musk and Bezos.

But at this point, these are like fringe rules.

Even if Democrats oppose the possibilities and retain control of Congress this November, there is no realistic hope of a campaign like New agreement against extreme inequality.

Furthermore, any conceivable redistribution policy would leave billionaires incredibly wealthy, able to buy whatever they want (except possibly Twitter).

However, what wealth does not always buy is wonder.

And that’s one area where tech titans have suffered huge losses.

Let me be nerdy awhile.

At least from the work of Max Weber a century ago, social scientists have realized that social inequality has many dimensions.

At a minimum, we must distinguish between the hierarchy of money, in which some people hold a disproportionate share of society’s wealth, and the hierarchy of prestige, in which some people are especially respected and admired.

People can occupy different positions in these hierarchies.

Sports legends, pop stars, social media influencers, and, yes, Nobel laureates are generally well -off financially, but their wealth is certainly just penetration compared to the enormous wealth of others.

Billionaires, on the other hand, demand respect, even enslavement, from those who rely on their trend, but few of them are widely known public figures and even fewer have dedicated fan bases.

The technological elites, however, have it all.

Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook was, for a time, a feminist icon.

Musk has millions of followers on Twitter, many of them real humans rather than bots, and these followers are often ardent Tesla supporters.

Now the radiance is gone.

Social media, formerly a so -called force for freedom, has been denounced as such disinformation vectors.

Tesla’s momentum has been damaged by stories of spontaneous combustion and autopilot crashes.

Tech tycoons still possess huge wealth, but the public – and the administration – don’t offer the old level of admiration.

And it drives them.

We’ve watched this movie before.

In 2010, most of the Wall Street elite, instead of feeling grateful for being on bail, were swallowed up by “Obama’s rage.”

Financial traffickers are furious because, in their opinion, they didn’t get the respect they deserved after, eh, the collapse of the world economy.

Unfortunately, plutocratic pettiness is important.

Money cannot buy admiration, but it can buy political power; it is unfortunate that some of this power has been deployed in the name of a Republican Party which further decreases towards authoritarianism.

Did I mention the most recent right-wing CPAC meeting, which included a video address of donald trumpwas held in Hungary under the leadership of Victor Orbánwho effectively killed the democracy of his country?

Moving to the right of some tech billionaire is also, if I may say so, very much so stupid.

It is true that oligarchs can become very rich under autocrats like Orban or Vladimir Putin, who was greatly admired by most American rights until he began to lose the war in Ukraine.

But these days, Russia’s oligarchs are, on many accounts, terrified.

Because even great wealth offers little security against misconduct and revenge by leaders who are not prevented by the rule of law.

Not that I expect the likes of Musk or Ellison to learn anything from this experience.

The rich are different from you and me:

They are often surrounded by people telling them what they want to hear.

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