The influence of tech billionaires: The broligarchs flex their muscles

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The influence of tech billionaires: The broligarchs flex their muscles Jan-Werner Müller • 3 hours • 6 minutes reading time They feel safe: The tech billionaires Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at President Trump's inauguration in Washington Bernie Sanders has been using the word for decades, but in the USA the term "oligarch" only seemed socially acceptable for a few avowed socialists and supposedly un-American social envious people. Now Joe Biden warned in his farewell speech about the emergence of an oligarchy combined with a "technological-industrial complex". What he was alluding to could be admired days later in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Trump's inauguration: the men who call the shots at Meta, Amazon and Microsoft sat right at the front; only behind them did the faces of Trump's cabinet members peek out from time to time (whose total assets amount to a mere seven billion dollars). But one must ask: is a term from ancient Greece useful in social science to capture the realities of the 21st century? And does it provide any normative value? Oligarch is not simply a swear word for the extremely rich, nor, contrary to what is often claimed, does it simply describe the rule of the few. Structurally, in every representative democracy, elected politicians who are not bound by any imperative mandate have more power than we ordinary citizens - a problem that cannot be avoided by the currently so popular idea of ​​citizens' councils. Oligarchy is also not a shorthand for the fact that elites develop in every organization, in keeping with the much-quoted "iron law of oligarchy" that Robert Michels formulated at the beginning of the 20th century (Michels wanted to point out, not least, that elites also rule in parties that are committed to equality). Oligarch is not simply a derogatory term for the extremely rich. Contrary to what is often claimed, it does not simply describe a rule by the few. Oligarchy is not the same as elite. Oligarchy means – as Aristotle already said – the rule of the wealthy (conversely, democracy was seen as the rule of the poor). The term is therefore deeply rooted in Western political thought – but it is probably not one of the basic historical concepts analyzed by Reinhart Koselleck: You can understand modernity without resorting to it; it was not part of everyday political language for a long time before it became popular as a description of powerful men in Russia. According to the American social scientist Jeffrey Winters – who has presented the most important studies on this – oligarchs can have very different political views; some are conservative, some advocate very progressive ideas. But all are interested in preserving their wealth. This goal can be pursued using different means. In the pre-modern era, many oligarchs were basically warlords – they had their own private armies. Others were, to paraphrase Max Weber, patrimonial lords who mixed private and state power. Today, however, oligarchs rely on law and an impersonal state apparatus that protect property; they do not seek office. Power can be exercised without office The trick, of course, is that power can be exercised without office. In the USA, wealthy people have always had enormous influence on politics; but it was the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 that triggered a real flood of money. Since then, companies have also been allowed to donate in the name of freedom of speech - they are considered people whose speech the state cannot prohibit, true to the First Amendment on free speech. In the 2024 election campaign, fifty percent of the donations to the Republicans came from just a hundred so-called "mega donors" (a very euphemistic word, since "donor" suggests something charitable). By comparison, the 100 most generous donors to the Democrats accounted for less than 20 percent of the total volume. This does not mean that money translates one-to-one into desired laws or electoral successes: Harris had more resources than Trump; billionaires like Steve Forbes have failed miserably in politics despite having unlimited resources (one of the most amusing titles of a social science essay is: "Why is there so little money in American politics?" - because if laws could be reliably bought, there should actually be a lot more cash flowing in). Can you draw a line between oligarchs and the simply wealthy? According to Winters, anyone who can afford the services of the so-called "income defense industry" becomes an oligarch. Even those who earn very high wages cannot easily hire highly specialized lawyers and bookkeeperswho store assets safely (and anonymously) in tax havens; he estimates that this requires at least four million dollars in annual income. Oligarchs are not the much-vaunted top one percent, but the top tenth of the one percent. They then manage to pay less taxes than the secretaries they employ using legal tricks. Between 2014 and 2018, Elon Musk paid a hefty 3.4 percent income tax; for many years, Trump paid none at all. Using a clever "material power index," Winters shows that the one percent are about a hundred times as powerful as the typical citizen in the bottom ninety percent - but the 400 richest Americans are 22,000 times as powerful - more than a Roman senator was compared to a slave. Money to protect your own money Anyone who can loosen up enormous amounts of money to protect their money will do so. Anyone who is able to influence public opinion will often do so: Berlusconi and the French businessman Vincent Bolloré are two inglorious European examples of the exchange of economic power for media power - and ultimately political influence. Berlusconi went into politics to keep the judiciary at bay; Bolloré managed to use his newspapers and television channels to turn the far-right commentator Éric Zemmour into a presidential candidate. The philosopher Michael Walzer pointed out years ago that there is something deeply unfair about converting one form of power into another: for example, you shouldn't be able to buy admiration as an artist. In theory, concentration of power can be prevented with laws; the new, not unproblematic anti-oligarch law in Ukraine prohibits tycoons from building a media empire. The ancient Greeks went so far as to declare anyone who became too powerful incompatible with democracy and banish them through the infamous ostracism (contrary to the modern prejudice that the whole thing was an orgy of social envy and incitement, it is worth remembering that those affected by ostracism were not morally condemned, they kept their property and were able to take up political office again after returning from exile). Visible power is also vulnerable power. Musk is not only buying Twitter; he is also making the connection between platform power, permanent right-wing messaging and the enforcement of his business interests clear. This marks a historical turning point: oligarchs have always had to exercise a certain degree of discretion in democracies; according to sociologist Brooke Harrington, you can pay specialists to ensure that your name does not appear on the famous Forbes list of the richest billionaires. The newer legal system in the USA also allows dark money, i.e. donations that cannot be attributed to anyone. Today, oligarchs are presented as if on a silver platter. On the one hand, Trump can show off how he makes tech bosses subservient to him - comparable to Putin in this respect. On the other hand, these "broligarchs" - a parody of "tech bros", i.e. the very masculine Silicon Valley culture - also apparently want to be admired, if not loved. This is not a sociologically helpless psychologization: Oligarchs today spread with manifestos and opinion articles - most recently Peter Thiel in an article in the "Financial Times" that was so pretentious that observers assume that the billionaire with philosophical ambitions actually wrote it himself. Musk's foundation spends practically no money The self-made political theories of the Silicon Valley titans always fit perfectly with the latest business model. The demand is consistent: less regulation, more freedom not for the many, but for the few who are supposedly the only ones capable of producing technologies to save humanity. Instead of gaining acceptance with cultural institutions like the Carnegies and Rockefellers - the robber barons of the previous turn of the century - today's oligarchs apparently feel so secure that they forego philanthropy: Musk's foundation spends almost no money; Mars missions are apparently enough to secure his reputation as a benefactor. The bet on Trump has paid off so far: the new-old president has converted to a crypto and AI enthusiast who wants to ruthlessly loosen regulations; incidentally, in the first week in office, the American administration was also weakened by cuts in the fight against tax avoidance (although estimates suggest that 21 percent of the income of the wealthiest is not taxed); the government also withdrew from the OECD agreement on global minimum taxation.