The billionaire elite has recently pushed itself to more prominence over their overt interference into politics. The examples of Elon Musk pouring millions into the Trump campaign and throwing his online weight behind Reform UK, as well as calling for Tommy Robinson’s release from jail are just some of the latest developments. But this is nothing new.
By Kevin Corran
Socialists are acutely aware that the capitalist class uses its wealth to pervert and manipulate political institutions and processes globally, with the aim of protecting their financial and business interests.
The wealthy own the vast majority of the media, which enables them to control the message. The Murdoch press, for example, has for decades vilified anyone who threatens the interests of big business, such as the miners in the 1980s, anti-war activists, anti-austerity movement in the 2010s and more recently, the Palestine solidarity movement have found themselves victims of a relentless media assault.
The capitalists’ media promotes politicians that can be relied upon to support their agenda of imperialist conflict and war, attacks on workers, and anti-trade union activity. The likes of Cameron, Blair, Sunak and Starmer are held up as perfect examples of ‘trusted’ politicians, who in turn gain favours from the revolving door into big business.
The billionaires, with Musk and Jeff Bezos being prime examples, try to propagate the myth that their wealth is ‘self-made’; they are creative geniuses and work tirelessly. However the truth is totally different. Most billionaires have inherited their wealth according to UBS, a Swiss bank favoured by the super-rich. Their wealth gives them immense power over the lives of workers, but this power is not tempered by any democratic structures or mechanisms.
Under capitalism, the massive wealth created by workers goes towards the enrichment of a few who don’t work – they just own – while the workers get to keep only what they can prise from the owners through organising and fighting back, most crucially through unionising and taking strike action. Indeed, this is the essence of capitalism, and shows us the two opposing forces at play. It helps to explain why the billionaires like Bezos and Musk put so much time, energy and resources into keeping trade unions out of the workplace and politicians in their back pocket.
It has been this relentless attack on democratic institutions by big business that has resulted in the cynicism and revulsion shown by workers for mainstream political parties. This is reflected in the falling voter turnout in working-class communities. There is a growing recognition that these political parties do not represent the interests of workers. But with the failure of the left to position itself as a fighting alternative, this period has created the opportunity for the far right to pose as anti-establishment and pro-worker. Farage uses the rhetoric of anti-establishment politics, but in reality he remains a servant dedicated to the capitalist system of exploitation, racism and war.
Without democratic control over this wealth, and indeed ownership of it, by the working class, we will never be able to direct this power in the direction of meeting the needs of society and the planet. With the planet changing due to the climate crisis, the cost of living crisis for workers, the endless imperialist wars across the world, there is an urgent need to wrestle control from the billionaires. It’s a total obscenity that the 1% of the world own 43% of all global financial assets. But it’s the fact that we have a system that produces billionaires, and soon the first trillionaire, that should spur us on in the struggle for socialism.
Real democracy is the life blood of socialism and remains impossible under capitalism. In order to break the power and influence of the billionaires entirely, we need to fight for a socialist society, where our workplaces are democratically controlled by workers as part of a wider planned economy that can give allow the majority in society to have a good standard of life, while at the same time protecting the planet.
The capitalist system is a global one and we need a global working class struggle against it, which is why Socialist Alternative is part of an international organisation with sections on every continent – International Socialist Alternative.
