When I see post after post by MAGA types saying liberals want to destroy the country, ruin the economy, etc, I often ask them, “Why would we want to do that?” I seldom see a rational answer, if any answer at all. But that, in effect, is the question we need to ask about Trump and his oligarchs.
While the oligarchs and oligarch wannabees have an obviously unquenchable wealth fetish, and while their narcissism compels them to strive for “top dog” status among the the “richest man” rankings (and they all seem to be men, don’t they?), what they collectively seek is to restore the “natural order.” By natural order, I mean/they mean, nobility. An upper crust, House of Lords nobility. A Dickensian nobility -better yet, a feudalistic nobility. This is something that cannot be realized in a functioning democratic republic, nor in an egalitarian society, and especially not in a society where wealth is close to evenly distributed. What good is limitless wealth if it doesn’t afford you dominance, supremacy, admiration, envy -and virtually unlimited power?
They see wealth as the means to that end, but the absolute number of dollars they hold matters less than the wealth gap between themselves and the masses. So while it seems counterintuitive to the rest of us that the oligarchs would to want to put us on a path to national economic ruin. Yet, it seems they do. The more subtle part of that statement is the word, "us.” They do not see themselves as among the us.
The value of great wealth is not just in having it; the great value is in what one can do with it. One of things one can do with it is acquire more things that enhance one’s wealth. Among these is to depress the price of those things. The best way to depress those prices is to crash the economy.
The oligarchs have so much wealth that in a depressed economy, they don’t have to liquidate assets to survive. The rest of us do. We have to divest, we lose our homes, we sell our stocks, we tap our IRAs and 401(k)s. We sell our failing small businesses, or just go out of business. All these things are good for oligarchs. Deflation is good for oligarchs. Their surplus dollars can buy more. When the market is flooded with unsold properties, the oligarchs buy en masse, and we all become renters, and the oligarch are our landlords. When stock prices fall, the oligarchs buy and seek majority control. They own it all and we all have to work for them. It’s a labor surplus market and wages fall even as they monopolize the marketplace and force price rise. All this works to widen the gap between the oligarchs and “us.”
Among the things oligarchs can buy more of in the deflationary scenario are economic power and political power. In a post Citizens United world, that includes politicians. That also includes the ability to become politicians. The rabble lack the resources to commit to running for office, and lack the resources to fund campaigns that can compete with the wealthy. There’s a reason the Gilded Age was associated with the term, “Robber Barons.” Baron is the key word. There’s a reason for (and a tell in) Donald Trump’s historical choice of the pseudonym, “Barron” when making his anonymously grifting phone calls -a name which he gave his youngest son. The oligarchs want to be nobility, and they believe -consciously or unconsciously- that reestablishing the “natural order,” a recognized class hierarchy between the elite and the unwashed masses, is the means to that end.
