The Depravity of the Ruling Class

In the midst of perhaps the most chaotic and crowded news cycle ever, the story that has consistently cut through the headlines is the slow, agonizing release of the Epstein Files.

Content Note: References to historical examples of sexual assult and rape.

The drop of the latest batch of Epstein Files point towards the objectively horrific conduct of many members of the ruling class – conduct we’ve seen before.

In the midst of perhaps the most chaotic and crowded news cycle ever, where the kidnapping of a world leader and the murder of a man by federal agents gets a week of main coverage at best, the story that has consistently cut through the headlines is the slow, agonizing release of the Epstein Files.

It is hardly a revelation that the ruling class is composed of monsters. After all, the suffering of millions of Palestinians, Congolese, and Immigrants in the US has not so much as thawed the icy hearts of those in power, let alone defrosted them enough to move to act on these crises. Still, when faced with the sheer depravity of the conduct of those in the Files, it is hard not to feel at least a bit taken aback.

The scale of Epstein’s “lolita express” operation is hard to overstate. From Bill Gates contracting an STI from cheating on his wife with “Russian girls,” to multiple references to torture, to yet more photos of videos of wealthy elites engaging in despicable behavior towards children I will not describe further here, there’s no shortage of nuggets of evil in the Files to dredge up here. To say that this executive summary barely scratches the surface of what we know so far would be an understatement.

Yet for all that this grand revelation is, it is not new. Perhaps this iteration is new in age, detached from the kings who would massacre serfs on a whim by many hundreds of years, but in form, this sort of thing has been happening for ages. After all, should we be surprised that the total lack of conscience and sense of humanity in the political and economic policy of the bourgeoisie would also be absent from their personal lives? Why would one assume the terror would be confined to a realm outside of their own direct actions? Indeed, it has always been in the nature of the capitalist ruling class to behave in this way.

In addition to the abhorrent living conditions and expropriation of the labor of those who were enslaved during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slaves were also subject to parallel forms of dehumanization. Enslaved women were often raped by their slave masters in order to produce ‘mixed’ children who would grow up to be future slaves, thus attaching an economic incentive to violate the dignity of those who were considered property. Thomas Jefferson famously raped Sally Hemmings, a woman he owned, at least six times. Some descendants of those produced of those rapes are still alive today, including Shannon LaNier, a TV host based in Houston. Part of the reason the ‘one drop rule’ for Blackness exists the way it does, whereby having any Black ancestry (‘a drop of negro blood’) makes someone Black, is so that the children of slave masters could become future slaves, despite only being ‘part Black’. Moreover, complimented by America’s metaphorical attachment to and parasitism upon Black flesh, there are even some firsthand accounts of white people cannibalizing slaves, including Nat Turner, who led one of the only American slave revolts. When subjects are dehumanized, their reprehensible treatment becomes more palatable for those with enough power not to care.

The Catholic Church has had so many child abuse and rape scandals, the Wikipedia page about it is organized by region, then subregion, and then country. It has become so ubiquitous that “priests touch kids” that it has been an essential part of any ‘edgy joke’ toolbox for decades. Even before the Epstein scandal, neither Bill Clinton nor Donald Trump’s status as rapists disqualified them from winning the presidency, while carrying the popular vote no less. Rape culture is pervasive, particularly among those who have the right connections to avoid facing the due consequences of their actions.

The Epstein Files are, at their core, a clear instance of the total inhumanity of the ruling class. However, as easy as it is to say that ‘the bourgeoisie are not human’, while rhetorically fair, it is unfortunately not true. These people are not animals, nor demons, nor memes, nor literal monsters; they are humans. Humans who, by virtue of their class position, have systematically facilitated, organized, and personally perpetrated fundamentally inhumane acts – and gotten away with it.

It is in the nature of capital to grow and expand, and it is in the nature of the capitalist to become alienated from their own humanity and species-being through that process. As Marx says in chapter 10 of Capital, “as capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital.” Moreover, Fanon teaches us throughout The Wretched of the Earth that, in inflicting physical violence on the colonized, the colonizer inflicts psychic damage on both themselves and their targets. The cultural manifestations of the corrupted souls of the capitalists like that of Little Saint James, that is to say products of the superstructure, are undergirded by capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism, that is to say products of the base. The mental infrastructure for inhumanity is baked into the essence of capitalism; too much sympathy for your worker, indentured native, or slave could cut into your profit margins. As such, these groups need to be Othered along racial, colonial, and class lines, fabricating ‘tiers’ of humanity and thus making it easier to dehumanize those lower on the hierarchy, both through their exploitation and expropriation, and through their rape and murder.

Again, this inhumanity is, terrifyingly, nothing new.

To feel crushed by the weight of these Files is entirely understandable. To feel worse off now knowing these atrocities are not unique is also reasonable. Still, we must not be dissuaded from mobilizing in the face of this national debacle. If anything, this represents a prime opportunity to build revolutionary potential, calling out not just that this situation is worth getting riled up about, but that its inhumane nature is inherent to how the world is structured today. We must bring the ruling class to justice by any means necessary.

Edited by Nick M-R