RUTHFULLY YOURS

It may well be that the hoary political distinction between left and right that has embedded itself in the language since the French Revolution of 1788-89, when the radical anti-monarchists and Jacobins sat on the left side of the chamber in the National Assembly and the traditionalists on the right, is no longer pertinent. The political binary that has dominated thought for over two centuries is growing obsolete.

The right is gradually being eroded, its traditional domains in government, church, education, corporate affairs and art, as Andrew Breitbart feared, gradually but inexorably losing their cultural authority and political credibility. With the advent of global financiers intent on remaking the world and the establishment of the giant media platforms and search engines, left and right are merging into a new, corporate, non-Hegelian synthesis. Soon there may be only different shades of left, which in practice means that once the progressivist venture is fully consummated, the term and concept of “left” would no longer apply. There would be little to the right of it.

We might say that the right is spending its way into the left. One of the great enigmas of our day is the fact that the most devoted and powerful socialists among us happen to be capitalist billionaires, corporate patricians laboring to destroy the democratic structures and free-market economies that allowed them to amass their fortunes in the first place. They are the elite members of the fabled one-percent whose policies and initiatives would ideally abolish the fiscal bracket to which they belong. Moreover, they are depriving young people of the social and economic conditions that they themselves enjoyed to blaze a path to opportunity and personal wealth.

They are, in short, cultural paradoxes who appear to suffer from a critical access of cognitive dissonance, Marxo-capitalists whose political loyalties and principles work against their own economic interests — unless, of course, they can successfully transform themselves into a managerial ruling class with a personal grip on the wealth of the nation. Such is clearly their aim. At that point, they need no longer compete in the marketplace but only with one another for the best seats on the Presidium. Company headquarters coalesce into a new Kremlin.

In his tour de force Democracy: The God That Failed, Hans-Hermann Hoppe warns that “those who reach their position as morally uninhibited demagogues” will use their “peculiar skills” of deception, opportunism and corruption, leavened with the gift of sociability, charisma and wealth, against those “hampered by moral scruples” and want of political savvy. They will accept no opposition to their views and convictions. The ancient principle of natural justice, Audiatur et altera pars (Let both sides be heard), is anathema to them.

Global financiers, currency speculators, newspaper moguls, hedge fund managers and crafty investors, along with the CEOs of Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Twitter, NBCUniversal and others, with a combined net worth larger than the GDP of many nations, steer their networks and organizations toward the absurdist fringes of progressivist ideology.

Dean of the Liberty University School of Business and former U.S. representative for Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, David Alan Brat draws our attention to the billionaire class that has “long been chasing China with the Democrats’ support [and] laughing as their marionettes dance down below and engage in class wars.” The clearest case, he continues, “of what looks like cognitive dissonance or schizophrenia is Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, one of the largest financial houses in the world.  Fink advances liberal environmental and social justice warrior causes in America while pushing massive amounts of investment to China — which is not exactly known for its clear skies or humane treatment of minorities.”

But there are many other “clear cases” of leftist billionaires who pursue an equally sinister agenda — “sinistra/sinister” is Latin word for “left.” They do their utmost to ensure that anyone who does not share in the ideas and modus operandi of the totalitarian left runs the risk of attack or exclusion. American Thinker has pointed to the collusion between NBC and Google to demonetize The Federalist and Zero Hedge, along with eight other conservative sites, including American Thinker, which has skin in the game. It remains to be seen whether money and grease — and ideological allies — will enable these monopolists to evade the legitimate charge of antitrust and racketeering violations.

The only consolation is that the left has a remarkable tendency to devour its own. Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs, majority shareholder of The Atlantic and Democratic Party megadonor with a net worth of $26.8 billion, had no scruple laying off20% of her lefty staff at the magazine. The treachery of the left is a lesson recently learned by arch-leftist Michael Moore whose film Planet of the Humans, critical of the failures of the Green movement he once fulsomely supported, was temporarily removedfrom YouTube. It has only recently been re-instated. (Of course, as with all diehard socialists, Moore’s learning faculties remained impaired — he called this act of censorship “Trumpian.”)

But such internal viciousness is cold comfort for those whose voices have been silenced, businesses and enterprises targeted, and livelihoods imperiled. Tech plutocrats, the most opulent members of what Angelo Codevilla anatomizes as The Ruling Class, will use their wealth, power and influence to annihilate all ideological competition and subdue what Codevilla calls the “Country Class” to their will, thus trampling on the principle of fair market practice that furnished them with the means to make their fortunes and to acquire the cultural pre-eminence they continue to enjoy.

These members of the capitalist left are the bearers of the “social democratic” torch, Bolsheviks of the wallet, masters of antinomian deception. Though professing a deep concern with the lot of ordinary people and ostensibly motivated by egalitarian principles, they display no intention of descending from the pinnacle of wealth, power and social eminence. The vaunted philanthropies for which they are famous are red herrings. As Influence Watch reports, “The Soros Fund Charitable Foundation… awards scholarships for students contributing to the scientific, cultural, or economic development of China” — as we well know, China is no friend, but the largesse seems noble. Bill Gates established the Giving Pledge whose aim is to persuade billionaires to donate half their wealth to charity. Even the far-left The Nation is suspicious of Gates’s self-serving charity work, as Gates continues to grow wealthier with every passing day. Charity may operate as a Trojan Horse with a view to destroying the city.

There can be no doubt that our most notable billionaires are one-party leftists, pure and simple, Marxists with deep pockets who, in virtue of their vast resources, their control of information and communication networks and their Samaritan posturing, may soon affect the political course of the nation. They represent what Michael Rectenwald in Beyond Woke calls “the left of capital — or woke capitalism, bourgeois leftism…that permeates most of the social order today…including academia, the media, digital media, and even corporate America.” As socialism continues its march through the institutions, culture and nation, ensuring that the populace can share equally in reduced circumstances, only the plutocrats will not suffer, maintaining their lives of privilege and plenty.

One recalls the old joke about Leonid Breznev, the fifth leader of the Soviet Union and a collector of vintage and high-end cars, trying to impress his elderly mother with his private fleet of expensive trophies. “But my son,” she frets, “what if the communists find out?”

The Marxo-capitalists need not worry.

Graphic credit: Pixabay

David Solway’s latest book is Notes from a Derelict Culture, Black House Publishing, 2019, London. A CD of his original songs, Partial to Cain, appeared in 2019.