Tom Neuburger: Why CEOs and the Very Rich Should Receive Enhanced Protection | naked capitalism

Yves here. Tom Neuburger gives a wonderfully subversive argument as to why our CEOs and other overlords deserve only the very best in security.

In keeping with Tom’s theme, the first time I saw snipers on rooftops (and yes, one more than one building) was in the nice suburb of Mexico City where McKinsey had its offices, I assume in the embassy district, in 1984. I thought it could not be very pleasant to be rich if you had to live that way.

And a small addition to his piece: some people make themselves indispensable by being willing to aggressively support the indefensible. Here the example is Kathy Wylde, president for the Partnership for New York City, who we’ve lambasted more than a few times, including as the focus of posts like “Almost Cartoonish Defender of the 1%, Kathryn Wylde” Rears Her Head to Attack Plans to Tax the Rich to Save New York City.

By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies

The case of Luigi Mangione puts people in a bind.

It doesn’t put media in a bind; the media’s covering CEO ass as fast as it can. About Brian Thompson, Ken Klippenstein writes, “The coverage seems more like a knighthood than journalism.”)

Our government is covering CEO butt with both hands as well. In a tweet with near 2 million views, Luke Goldstein notes this about the state of New York’s response:

From the linked Politico article:

State officials want to calm the nerves of New York City’s business elite after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson sent shockwaves through the corporate world.

Gov. Kathy Hochul will broker a virtual meeting Tuesday with state law enforcement officials and about 175 corporate representatives to discuss sharing security resources.

I wonder how many denied claimants Ms. Hochul has calmed. There are so many, I’m sure she’s talked to a few.

About “shar[ed] security resources,” here’s what that means:

[Kathy] Wylde [Partnership for New York City president and the business world’s contact person for this effort] told Playbook that the discussion will include the State Police as well as state Homeland Security and counterterrorism officials to show how intelligence can be shared with corporate security.

Homeland Security. For a lone gunman murder with no terror affiliations. It seems we have a home-grown federal police and its full force will be at their disposal. Nice for the CEO class to be so cared about.

It Really Is Class War

But this piece isn’t about the hypocrisy of the state:

It’s about how right the state is to take this man’s death seriously.

Protecting the Opulent Minority

Bare fact: The U.S. was founded on class war. By “founded on,” I mean from the start. James Madison:

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. [The Senate] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.

“Opulent” is a lovely word. This is opulent:

The country since has suffered under the war of the classes (or the “orders,” as Madison called them). Jeffersonian democracy was opposed to the elitism of the Federalists. Over the next decades, the franchise was gradually extended, peacefully or not, until after the great Civil War (whose gains for Southern Black swere soon reversed), the very rich became the great dominant class.

But for a brief hiatus caused by the national pain of the Great Depression and its happier aftermath, the rich have held sway ever since.

What’s worse, their power is unlikely to be taken away. Money controls our politics and our laws, more so every day. And the benefits of that control are, well, opulent.

So yes, of course, the CEOs should accept the cover and protection of a state that enables them and which they control. I strongly advise more of it. They should, in fact, have armed guards everywhere.

I’m serious. I think it’s important.

Why I’m in Favor of Billionaire Protection

There are two reasons to advocate seeing billionaires and their CEO operatives ostentatiously and aggressively protected.

First, each American can decide for her or himself whether murder is wrong or not. That decision comes with a catch, however:

• If you support social murder — death at a distance executed by corporate greed — you also have to be fine with retaliation. Justifying one type of murder justifies both.
• If you think all murder is wrong, you should then be strongly opposed to state-sanctioned death, including by corporate bodies who turn death into profit.

You can’t support corporate killing and oppose its deadly response. I myself oppose murder of all kinds. So I want our billionaires and their deadly corporate consiglieri very well guarded. Visibly, grandly, over-ambitiously guarded.