"We're clearly living in the age of the petulant oligarch."
"Privilege corrupts," Paul Krugman writes in his latest column. "Enormous privilege corrupts enormously, in part because the very privileged are normally surrounded by people who would never dare tell them that they're behaving badly." |
Paul makes that observation about Elon Musk and the chaos surrounding his takeover of Twitter. But Paul is not just commenting on the flaws of one immensely wealthy man. He is noting the flaws in our society and political system. |
"We're now ruled by such people," he writes. "For we're clearly living in the age of the petulant oligarch." |
This is different, he says, in quality and dimension, from the role that the wealthy played in the past, the power they held. It's due largely to the net worth of the richest sliver of Americans. |
"The immense wealth of the modern super-elite has surely brought a lot of power," he says, "including the power to act childishly." |
It has helped create a "cult of the genius entrepreneur," which is now being discredited by men like Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried, who went from crypto hero to criminal defendant seemingly overnight. |
"A happy ending to this story," Paul says, "seems increasingly unlikely." |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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