The job of the politician in a plutocracy is always to find the line that provides the lowest level of pay, security, housing, consumer protection, health care and political access for society so that the economic elite can extract and hoard the greatest amount of wealth, power, and immunity from justice for themselves. The trickle-down economics narrative is a grand illusion for those in power to promote to justify dominance over those who are less privileged. Of course, it is based on greed being a virtue, relying on a system to harness the selfishness of people and direct it to public good, thus freeing itself from the need to depend unrealistically upon the uncertain moral virtues of its participants. In the US during the second decade of 21st century it is necessary to address the growing gap: 80% of the national wealth generated goes to the top 2%; and 65% to the upper 1%.
Within the plutocracy the wealthy win acceptance from the entire political class that its largely speculative activities, such as financialization – the growth of the scale and profitability of the financial sector at the expense of the rest of the economy – are normal. Through this process the financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes. In addition, the wealthy control enough of the media to ensure they are credited for being the economy’s principle engine of growth. In return, they are given privileged treatment as the well-being of the national economy ‘relies’ on them. Plutocrats make investments to ensure ongoing upward flow of cash. They invest in the political system – in 2010 the Supreme Court held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited, because doing so would violate the First Amendment. Over the decades they have spent millions of dollars opposing unions and supporting deregulation.
Illusion is the ability to manipulate how other people perceive reality. The low unemployment rate as a measure of prosperity is an illusion – the quality of jobs is deteriorating. The illusion of wealth has become a way of life for Americans. What makes our society unstable is when the illusions around income inequality start to disappear. People can or are more willing to overlook income inequality as long as their quality of life remains unchanged. As long as the greediness within the plutocracy does not affect their day-to-day life – your retirement is funded, you can afford to take vacations – you are willing to look away while the economic elite are doing their thing. This “market society” is based around a market economy, especially one in which political and economic life are dominated by ideas of individual freedom and self-interest. Maintaining the illusion of prosperity, though, is critical to the economy as it is, because its foundation is built on consumption, fraud, credit and debt.
There is no difference between the fake news, misinformation, disinformation of today – such lies have been churned out for years, but today it is designed to support the plutocracy. There is an orchestrated counter-revolution based on polarization. Trump’s victim politics is a complete fraud, an old trick used by economic elite to keep working-class Americans fighting each other rather than focusing on processes to counter the plutocrats who are ripping them off. Trump and his allies stoke racial tensions even as they seek to cut taxes on the rich by shedding affordable health care for everyone else, dismantle protection for workers and consumers, and tear down environmental protections that stop wealthy corporations from poisoning communities. Victim politics is cultivated for a reason – to keep workers distracted from the real causes of economic inequality. Populism is the new victimhood.
The populist plutocrat is a leader who exploits the cultural and economic grievances of poorer, less-educated voters against traditional elites in order to achieve and retain power, but who, once in office, seem substantially or primarily interested in enriching him- or herself, along with a relatively small circle of family members, cronies, and allies. Much like other populist plutocrats who have come to power around the world, Donald Trump used anti-elite rhetoric to gain office, then performed an about-face to govern for the benefit of the very economic elites he derided as a candidate. He ran as a populist; but governs as a plutocrat. Conservative populists target those with a monopoly on representation (journalists, scholars, established political parties) rather than those with a monopoly on production. The gap between Trump’s rhetoric and his policies is not all that uncommon for populists. In Latin America, for example, many populist leaders who campaigned one way governed another.
The “narcissism of small differences” was Freud’s 1917 term for his observation that people with minor differences between them can be more competitive and hateful that those with major differences. This concept posits that human nature is essentially egoistic, capable of forming groups only by virtue of shared enemies, a prospect made more depressing because it posits group identities as fictitious, contrived on the basis of denial and distortion. Freud’s theory explains we tend to reserve our most virulent emotions such as aggression and hatred towards those who resemble us the most. We feel threatened by the ‘nearly-we’, who mirror and reflect us. Freud viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the stress comes from looking in the mirror. The narcissism of small differences can apply to politics as minor differences between individuals and groups are particularly prone to be the occasion of bitter dispute.
The Tea Party was funded by the Republican elite in the aftermath of a potentially demoralizing 2008 electoral defeat in order to provide opposition to the new Obama administration and create a wedge issue for the midterm elections. During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Party anger over Obamacare was misread by the Republican Party elite as principled rejection of social welfare programs, despite evidence that those voters broadly supported spending what they believed they deserved – Social Security and Medicare. The Republican elite urged voters to blame the recession on excessively generous home-lending policies, while moving to roll back regulations of one of their biggest sources of campaign money, the financial industry. The Republican Party establishment misread the mood and organized to support tax cuts and deregulation. Exploiting the Citizen’s United decision, money poured into a super PAC that helped Romney overcome more populist challengers.
The Tea Party was welcomed into the Republican Party, and went on to elect members to Congress who support tea party principles. Tea party members ignored the established leadership and created a dysfunctional legislature. The principles of the Tea Party remained alive, and Donald Trump has figured out how to harness their disillusionment and growing anger. His economic policy resonates with the Tea Party adherents who have seen good jobs disappear overseas – his policy has these jobs returning to America. Trump appeals to resentment that ultimately rests on economic failure: working-class whites have been left behind by soaring inequality (but they mistakenly blame emigrants taking their jobs). Donald Trump – figured out how to harness their disillusionment and growing anger – is superior to the others in exploiting the narcissism of small differences to recruit the Republican base.
The plutocracy is an exclusive group sharing a devotion to ideas and similar ideology. Many of their reactions to the working class can be explained by narcissism. Extreme individualism leads to narcissism. Narcissism creates the illusion that once one has an idea, then it must be reality. It is about bringing individuals of like thinking into their bubble, and attributing unique or perfect qualities to those with whom they associate. This consists of an idea of a hierarchical system in which elites are superior, have no empathy for the middle class, in fact, express distain for those who they consider inferior. Narcissists cannot take criticism. The plutocrats consider themselves singled out, unfairly maligned, and punished for their success. The strong expend resources to secure a plutocracy to ensure their vulnerability to appropriation by the weak through voting by the majority is countered, such as Trump’s manipulation of the Post Office to undermine mail-in voting.
In 1997 Gerald Celente in his prediction in trends 2000 saw the increasing income gap being the cause of street unrest in the first decades of the new millennium, and the solution being the return back to democracy from a plutocracy. A consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the end of our romance with a market society and extreme individualism. In order to confront a populist plutocracy, the system needs to be free from the corrupting influence of corporate money. Inequities – the unfair, avoidable differences arising from poor governance, corruption, or cultural exclusion – reduce the freedom and opportunities for an individual to reach their full potential in general, and wellness or good health, in particular. It is necessary to focus on the economy with its multifaceted connections to social issues, and build more equal societies. The new system must address the existing inequities to prevent this era of fear and hatred from evolving into a populist regime.