Democracy, Plato and Aristotle
both theorized, is a governmental system that is most susceptible to the mob—meaning
mob-rule. Accordingly, the Electoral College and the appointments of U.S.
Senators by state governments, the latter being the case from the establishment
of the U.S. Constitution to a few decades into the twentieth century, were
meant to limit any damage from momentary passions of the People to the U.S.
House of Representatives. The governments in the United States, like those in
the European Union, are republics in which democracy is a part rather than the whole.
What neither Plato nor Aristotle could foresee in their agrarian city-states is
the threat to democracy by plutocracy—the system of government in which private
wealth rules. It is less understandable why the American electorates have
ignored repeated warnings of the threat, especially as governmental power has
concentrated at the federal level since the war between the CSA and the USA in
1861.
Much like U.S. President Dwight
Eisenhower had done “in 1961 when he expressed concerns about the ‘military
industrial complex’ in his farewell address,” President Biden said in his
address, “’an oligarchy is taking shape in America’ as power and money become more
concentrated in the hands of the few.”[1]
Biden “criticized the ‘tech industrial complex’ and social media, where ‘the
truth is smothered by lies for power and for profit.’”[2]
It seemed likely in 2025 that Biden’s warning would not eventuate in any policies
oriented to breaking up the concentrations of private wealth, which I submit
are inherently incompatible with a democracy. Simply put, seeing billionaires
visibly chatting with government officials during President Trump’s second
swearing-in presents a picture that may suggest that the influence of private
wealth on public policy (and thus government officials) had gained such a foothold
that the confluence could be shown brazenly without fear that the American people
might vote for candidates campaigning on enforcing anti-trust law and raising
the effective tax-rates on billionaires to the point that, with anti-trust, being
so rich from an oligarchic business would not be possible going forward.
Besides Elon Musk, perhaps the richest billionaire in the world at the time, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (Facebook) as well as the titans of Amazon, Google, Apple, and Microsoft could be seen on television in front of, and amicably chatting with the incoming administration's Cabinet secretaries. Musk was chatting with Trump's proposed secretary of defense in spite of the conflict of interest in Musk owning SpaceX. Zuckerberg could feel comfortable being seen chatting with secretaries and President Trump’s adult sons in spite of his power to minimize political dissent on social media. With 90 days to decide whether to close down or sell Tik Tok, President Trump expressed interest in a news conference in the evening of his second inaugural in letting rich Americans buy into a 50/50 joint venture that would allow China to continue Tik-Tok operations in the United States. Were Zuckerberg or Musk to invest enough that they could exercise control on the company through the American half, the investments could put the two social-media titans closer to achieving monopoly control over social media in the United States.
The real power evinced in the inaugural ceremony was in the seating area where the Cabinet nominees, the tech titans, and Trump's business-oriented relatives were sitting. At one point prior
to the arrival of Trump himself, all of the living former U.S. Presidents, Democrats
and Republicans, were looking across the aisle at the cadre of Trump’s
nominated cabinet secretaries, the billionaire tech titans, and Trump’s business-family.
Those former presidents undoubtedly knew where the real power was, and perhaps
they were surprised to see the public-private collusion so brazenly visible. After
the ceremony, hidden from the public’s view at the lunch in the Capitol, members
of Congress, “Cabinet nominees and business titans within Trump’s inner circle”
mingled.[3]
The luncheon was an “opportunity that VIPs use to mix and mingle with members
of the administration and advance their policy priorities. Apple CEO Tim Cook [was]
seated between Donald Trump Jr and [U.S. Senate] Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.”[4]
I submit that most such mingling takes place behind closed doors, even and
especially in regard to the writing of laws. It is not uncommon for
Congressional committee to use language written by the companies to be
regulated.
Lest President Eisenhower’s warning of the dangers to democracy from the military-industrial complex be replaced by Biden’s warning of a tech industrial complex as if the former had gone away on its own, President Trump promised in his second inaugural address, “Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.” Lest it be forgotten, President Biden has approved weapon-sales to Israel even as it ravaged the residents of Gaza on a scale that openly deified international human-rights law. Rather than assuming that Eisenhower’s problem was only existed in the second half of the twentieth-century, the American people in the twenty-first century would not be wrong in perceiving the tech industrial complex as being on top of the continuing military industrial complex. How many such complexes must there be before a existential threat to democracy itself be recognized and combatted? The sheer power of huge sums of private money, such as the influx of Elon Musk’s millions in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, and the magnitude of the discretion that Zuckerberg showed he had in unilaterally firing fact-checkers on his social-media company, can indeed be peeled back to reveal just how much the American voters could be manipulated on whom to vote for and even what issues to focus on. Rarely, if at all, did a candidate for federal office propose applying anti-trust law to the social-media’s big companies in the U.S.—an oligopoly. Nor was there any traction from the few voices in Congress suggesting that maybe the U.S. Government should stand up to military contractors by refusing to buy weapons for Israel and give that country’s government money to buy even more American weapons. The shop was open for business; human rights be damned.
The point is seldom made in American public discourse that had the U.S. Government enforced anti-trust law, including stopping tech giants like Facebook and Twitter from peremptorily buying up potential new-entrants in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, a billionaire class would not have been so large, and thus such an implicit threat to democracy. Just in how social-media company financial (and political) interests can be tacitly presented to manipulate internet users in feeds without the voters realizing it, the reason why Biden’s warning was not likely to be heeded at the ballot box can be understood. I submit that the televised images of tech “competitors” sitting together at Trump’s second inaugural points to an inter-related oligopoly instead of a competitive market (wherein new entrants are not bought up). But this is not all that we can take away from having watched the ceremony; we could also see the billionaires amicably chatting with likely high officials in Trump’s second administration, with Musk’s SpaceX having a financial interest in being NASA’s exclusive space-sub-contractor, and with Musk’s “X” and Zuckerberg’s social-media giant having a financial interest in what the Trump administration does about Tik-Toc.
My point is that, had the inherent threat that having billionaires poses to a viable republic been grasped by the American public, then governmental power would have been used such that the Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and other tech managerial-visionaries would not have been able to become billionaires in the first place. As of 2025, and perhaps even back in 1961 concerning the military contractors, the proverbial horses were almost certainly already out of the barn. Thus, the electoral grass-roots energy going forward from 2025 needed to upset the proverbial apple-cart being steered by individual teckie billionaires to advance the financial interests of their respective companies in the halls of American government would be, realistically speaking, virtually unattainable. One of the most remarkable visuals from President Trump’s second swearing-in ceremony was that of the former presidents all looking over at the billionaires' very visible nicities with the incoming Trump officials and Trump's financially-inclined scions. The former presidents looked like bystanders rather than as pillars of power in themselves even though power had presumably been given to them by the People. I’m just glad that it does not fall to me to get the horses back in the barn. Ultimately, the American People since World War II are to blame for not having minded the proverbial shop as a going concern, for they should have known from the Titanic that most of an iceberg is hidden from view under water. Yes, I think people should know that, even with respect to icebergs in the ocean of political economy. Perhaps, though, I think too highly of popular sovereignty, which, unfortunately, is admittedly quite vulnerable to being manipulated. Both the manipulation itself and the sources are very difficult for the public to detect. Whether through social and/or mass media, even just a few very rich people or a large company, or a network of large corporations with oligopolistic shared financial interests can frame what is debated, and keep out what is not. It is precisely because detection is so rare that the visuals coming out of Trump's second inaugural are so important, for they give us a rare glimpse of the nature and dynamics of real power in America.
2. Ibid.
3. Michelle Shen, “Trump Attends Congressional Luncheon Where Key Politicians and Business Leaders Mingle,” CNN.com, January 20, 2025.
4. Ibid
