https://iclfi.org/pubs/wr/47/epstein
Sex trafficking of teenage girls. Systematic torture of vulnerable youth. Rumored hunting parties of black people. Dead men tell no tales, but the files left behind by Jeffrey Epstein are a catalog of unspeakable crimes. It’s no wonder a galaxy of forces combined to try to keep this extremely damning evidence hidden. Trump’s name appears many thousands of times in his closest friend’s available files—and much more material remains under wraps. Of course, the president has lots of company: prominent figures in international business and banking, lying politicians from both sides of the aisle, pampered royal relics of a bygone era and even some celebrities are implicated. Slick Willie (Clinton) certainly has a lot more explaining to do. This whole sordid saga has sparked an outpouring of raw anger among workers of all backgrounds. Revolutionaries must try to give that anger a clear and consistent class content and expression.
The Dark Underbelly of the Liberal World Order
The wealthy elites in the U.S. are no strangers to profound sexual depravity, dating back even before the widespread rape of enslaved black women and girls. But the Epstein case is distinctly modern. His rise to riches was fueled by the U.S.-dominated liberal world order in the heyday of globalization. Epstein consolidated his international network at the time when the country’s ruling class was spreading its tentacles into every corner of the planet. The social crimes at the heart of this process (e.g., the pillage of other countries) enabled the personal crimes of Epstein and his associates. He amassed his fortune as a power broker and financial fixer for the billionaires, who were reaping vast sums from wild speculation and other parasitic behavior.
Even while these vultures profited tremendously from the misery of others, they pretended like they cared. So, too, did Epstein, who exaggerated his philanthropy to rebuild his public image after his 2008 conviction for soliciting underage sex. When nobody was looking, though, this mask of concern came off and the Epstein gang expressed how the billionaires truly view the daughters and sons of the working masses. Today, the age of liberal hypocrisy that produced Epstein is no more. But we are not better off for it. There are plenty more Epsteins out there and the billionaires are more willing than ever to crash and burn our world in order to keep theirs afloat.
The Epstein files confirm what many workers have long felt. The trove of material is vivid proof that the system is rigged by the rich behind the scenes, and to monstrous ends at that. As the late comedian George Carlin quipped, it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. The rules just don’t apply to them. The powers that be turn even one-time, low-level sex offenders into social pariahs for life as a means to regiment the population. But they let one of their own intermediaries get away with a slap on the wrist, all so he could keep procuring them favors. Epstein was able to operate for as long as he did owing to this mutual protection racket. Even today, the big club might have tossed out a few sacrificial lambs (so long, Andrew Mountbatten and Peter Mandelson), but not a single Epstein associate has fallen from grace in the U.S. itself.
Whether social plunder out in the open or sadistic violence behind closed doors, the billionaires commit their barbaric acts with impunity. Workers do not stand a chance in isolation. That’s why the U.S. rulers go to such pains to keep them divided against one another. But for all the differences among working people, both real and perceived, their near-universal outrage at the Epstein affair testifies to the fact that they are all put upon by the billionaires. It will be possible to keep this common enemy at bay only if workers practice their own form of mutual protection based on the trade unions and band together in defense of one another.
Conspiracy Theorizing Keeps True Power in Place
At the moment, seething anger is finding less promising outlets. Among these is conspiracy theorizing. The QAnon movement has declared the vindication of its core message that a satanic cabal of moneyed pedophiles controls Western institutions under the wing of the deep state. But such takes on power dynamics hold no water. There are conspiracies in history (see Epstein), but history is not a conspiracy. The shape and development of a society cannot be explained through the narrow lens of the secret plots of a few evil actors. To accomplish that requires zooming out to a broader view of the clash between the competing interests of the great social forces, the classes. From this standpoint, one can understand not only the social processes that nurtured Epstein, but also how to counter them.
In contrast, conspiracy theories rarely provide any clear course of action to change things for the better. And when action is urged, it is a distraction. Working people are kept charging individually into pizza parlor basements (see Pizzagate), when they need to be joining in collective struggle against the billionaires. Sure enough, QAnon’s messiah is none other than Trump, who is supposed to “save the children.” Back in office, he has done everything but that, from keeping a lid on the Epstein files and denying food stamps to poor kids for weeks to bombing a girls’ school in Tehran. Cracks are emerging in MAGA because the president acts in accordance with the interests of the ruling class, not his promises to workers.
Beyond his immediate victims, Epstein probably inflicted the greatest harm on his own people. His offenses are fodder for all the vilest anti-Semitic tropes. Those who blame “Jewish capitalism” for society’s ills are shielding those at the very heights of power. Figures like Epstein and liberal billionaire George Soros do not pull the strings in the U.S. The WASPs have always held that honor; to this day, they make up the bulk of capitalists. Some claim that Epstein was a Mossad agent who engaged in illicit activity on behalf of Israel. Whatever the truth on this score, Epstein was able to get away with so much because the U.S. empire accorded him great license. In a similar vein, those who argue that Israel blackmailed Trump into launching “Operation Epstein Fury” against Iran get the relationship between the two countries all wrong. The U.S. is the world power; if Israel lost Washington’s backing, the Zionist state would not fare well surrounded by all the hostility it has provoked. Trump went to war because he calculated that doing so would strengthen U.S. domination of the region. That jury is still out.
Left Populism Lets Billionaires Off the Hook
Left populism does not offer any more of a way forward than its right-wing variants. The reason is not hard to figure out. In all cases, the populists look to the “pure people” against the corrupt elite, only their opinions differ on who fits which bill. So, the right populists count Trump among the pure and the Democrats to be corrupt, and it’s the opposite for their left counterparts. But Trump and the Democrats are all in the same jacuzzi. Democrat Ro Khanna has played a forward role in trying to get ahead of mass outrage in order to dissipate it. He helped secure the release of the files and bangs on about accountability for the “Epstein class,” not to go after the obscenely wealthy, but to save their skin. As Khanna said: “I don’t want pitchforks even against people who are billionaires.” But absent the coordinated wielding of pitchforks in working-class hands, there will be no real justice for the survivors and no strong deterrent for the next Epstein.
Nonetheless, some on the Marxist left echo Khanna and his talk of the “Epstein class.” Let’s be clear: all the elite in the U.S. are corrupt. If they are not fought tooth and nail across the board, they will drag everyone else down with them. To further this fight, working people should continue to clamor for the immediate, full release of the unredacted files. This act of exposure can have a real galvanizing effect, as the tumult surrounding the Epstein files demonstrates. It is one thing to assume the worst, it is quite another to see it play out in real time.
The Epstein affair also points to the potential impact of the “open the police archives” campaign, which some leftists have dismissed as inconsequential. Such an attitude betrays an indifference to the black and workers struggles alike. The cops are known to work together to rape, torture and kill black and brown people and to victimize workers who take on the bosses, but they throw up a “blue wall of silence” to cover up the details. Subjecting the cops’ heinous crimes to the light of day is the kind of thing that could put the billionaires and their deep-state protectors in a real tight spot.
