USA: Oligarchizing the world’s first modern democracy

Oligarchy – a term typically associated with Russian oil tycoons is now a buzz word for American politics, partly since Joe Biden’s farewell speech on the 15th of January: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America […] the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people”.

Though unnamed, it is not hard to see who the ultrawealthy are – they were front and centre at President Trump’s inauguration on the 20th of January.

The world’s three richest people, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos sat right behind the President during his inauguration. Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Rupert Murdoch were also spotted. US Senator Bernie Sanders said in a social media post that "when the wealthiest men in America sit behind Trump at his inauguration, everyone understands that the billionaire class now controls our government". It is this proximity to power which led Joe Biden to warn of an oligarchy.

The claim America is turning into an oligarchy is supported by recent events.

Elon Musk pumped 250 million dollars into Trump’s presidential campaign – 40.5 million of which were controversial daily 1-million-dollar payments to Trump supporters in seven swing states. The billionaire now heads the new Department for Government

Efficiency (DOGE) designed to overview and cut spending already appropriated by Congress and signed by the president. This is in blatant breach of article 1 of the constitution which establishes Congress and empowers the legislative branch to appropriate funds. Moreover, this constitutes a serious threat to American democracy: the amount of power vested into an unelected individual seemingly because of his wealth is concerning.

Events surrounding Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are also evidence for an oligarchic regime. Meta paid a 25-million-dollar settlement in a four-year-old lawsuit filed by Trump over the suspension of his accounts after the January 2021 attack on the Capitol. Zuckerberg has also removed fact checkers from his platforms - a move which will enable more extremist views to perforate social media. In similar veins, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook have all had face to face meetings with the President, the latter reporting that he wants “to get ideas from them”. Such events inform the debate around “Oligarchy 2.0”, or Tech Oligarchy. In these cases, it is not proximity to presidential power which is concerning (for example, as the Economist points out, Zuckerberg’s ability to influence Trump is limited) but their undisputed control over social media. Cosying up to “tech oligarchs” is crucial for a President whose comeback was contingent upon his capacity to engage with an online audience. Social media, in the words of comparative politics professor Daniel Kinderman, can shape “what we [think we] know and how we think and what we think”. This gives the tech executives immense power over the means of influencing public opinion. To have that power concentrated in so few individuals who have explicitly aligned themselves with President Trump is evidence of a tech oligarchy.

In Book V of Politics, Aristotle warns that oligarchies are unstable forms of government. His advice to oligarchs is to avoid relying “upon the political devices…invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.” In other words, he would tell our tech moguls not to rely on social media to secure their position. In an increasingly unstable world, unguarded social media platforms will morph into arenas of revolt, anarchy leading to more harm and polarization than good. Genuine political stability requires alignment of chief executives with the common good and well-being of the population.