In the wake of last week’s release of three million pages of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the commentary has understandably and necessarily focused on powerful men’s sexual exploitation of young women and girls. But the documents paint a truly holistic picture of how the world’s wealthiest men think and talk, and not just about women. Here, for example, is an email in its totality and verbatim from Jes Staley, the former CEO of the global finance behemoth Barclays, who also appears to have been sexually involved with women under Epstein’s influence:
you want to know why we are not São Paolo, watch the TV adds on the Superbowl. Its all about hip blacks in hip cars with white women.
The group that should be in the streets, has been bought off. By Jay Z
This email offers a rare glimpse into the minds of the financial superelite, with São Paolo standing in for a volatile megacity given to frequent eruptions of mass unrest. They know the system that made them wealthy beyond imagination should logically produce popular revolt, even in rich capitalist countries, which are nonetheless highly unequal. Why doesn’t it? Staley’s simple answer is that consumerist ideology hypnotizes the masses with the prospect of transcending their status by emulating celebrities and acquiring commodities.
Staley is openly asserting here what many on the Left have long feared: that workers in rich societies are too bought off to overthrow capitalism. But among many other revelations in Epstein’s emails is the glaring fact that the ruling elite are not as uniquely bright as they’d like us to think. For all their wealth and power, these are no Übermenschen — they’re just average men with lurid sexual impulses and atrocious spelling. Their money and influence do not testify to their exquisitely developed personalities or intellects, only to the arbitrary injustice of the system that elevates them.
In other words, just because the former CEO of Barclays thinks…
Auteur: Meagan Day
