Techno-authoritarians’ Trojan horse
Franklin Foer on the Trump-Musk alliance (The Atlantic):
In Elon Musk’s vision of human history, Donald Trump is the singularity. If Musk can propel Trump back to the White House, it will mark the moment that his own superintelligence merges with the most powerful apparatus on the planet, the American government—not to mention the business opportunity of the century.
Many other titans of Silicon Valley have tethered themselves to Trump. But Musk is the one poised to live out the ultimate techno-authoritarian fantasy. With his influence, he stands to capture the state, not just to enrich himself. His entanglement with Trump will be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life, because Trump has explicitly invited Musk into the government to play the role of the master engineer, who redesigns the American state—and therefore American life—in his own image.
And what an image.
In case you need reminding, Brian Klaas wrote recently on how many of the ultra rich get richer by becoming politicians:
The answer: 11.7 percent of the world’s billionaires have sought or held political office, a remarkably high number. What’s more, because money talks in politics, almost all the billionaires who tried to gain political office succeeded. Unsurprisingly, their “hit rate” is high. (When the researchers loosened their definition to include political advisory boards and other informal political positions beyond formal office, the rate rose to around 15 percent).
They have an affinity for seeking political positions in a particular kind of country, Klaas writes: autocracies.
The reason? Politics is the most straightforward way to get rich in autocracies. When the state controls the spoils, the way to get the spoils is to become part of the leadership of the state. That is one reason why China has so many billionaire politicians, the largest raw number—and the highest proportion—of any country.
Second, while US billionaires enter politics at about the same rate as those in peer democracies, because there are so many American billionaires, that entry rate translates into a larger number of billionaires being involved in politics than other similar countries. As a result, billionaires play a bigger role in American politics than in other similar countries.
Musk, Foer writes, has already turned the U.S. government into a profit center. Now he’s hungry for real power through an alliance with Trump to that will realize his grandiose vision for himself: to turn over government spending to the tech bros and to eliminate politcally neutral civil servants.
This isn’t a standard-issue case of oligarchy. It is an apotheosis of the egotism and social Darwinism embedded in Silicon Valley’s pursuit of monopoly—the sense that concentration of power in the hands of geniuses is the most desirable social arrangement. As Peter Thiel once put it, “Competition is for losers.” (He also bluntly admitted, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”) In this worldview, restraints on power are for losers, too.
It’s a Bond villian’s idea of Utopia.
Foer concludes:
At Tesla, Musk assigned himself the title of “technoking.” That moniker, which sits on the line between jokiness and monomania, captures the danger. Following the example set by Trump, he wouldn’t need to divest himself from his businesses, not even his social-media company. In an administration that brashly disrespects its critics, he wouldn’t need to fear congressional oversight and could brush aside any American who dares to question his role. Of all the risks posed by a second Trump term, this might be one of the most terrifying.
They don’t want to govern. They want to rule. Not the America of the 19th century, but the Europe of the 14th. Except with gadgets and Bond women. I’m sorry, bondwomen.
And all this time I thought we were living in a “Twilight Zone” episode.