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How America’s Business Elite Became Their Own Marxist Caricature
from the these-things-matter dept
There is a moment in every authoritarian takeover when the business elite must choose between principle and profit, between defending the system that made their wealth possible and accommodating the forces destroying that system. That moment has arrived for America’s capitalist class, and they are failing the test so spectacularly that they’re validating every Marxist critique of capitalism ever written.
I have a question for my center-right friends sitting on their hands: what do you think is going to happen when all is said and done, when all the blood is spilled, and all the corporate leaders who bent the knee to this regime try to resume their lectures about the virtues of free market capitalism? Do you really think monologues about Milton Friedman’s pencil parable are going to resonate with a population that watched you collaborate with authoritarianism?
Their inaction, their neutrality, their “pragmatic” accommodation—every golden plaque presented to Trump, every settlement paid to avoid retaliation, every silent acquiescence to constitutional destruction—all of this is discrediting capitalism in the eyes of ordinary Americans in ways that no socialist organizer could achieve. They are acting like the cartoon villains Marxists make them out to be, and they should not be surprised when the torches and pitchforks come for them.
Tim Cook’s trembling hands as he presented Trump with a custom Apple plaque on a 24-karat gold base will be remembered as the moment American capitalism genuflected before American fascism. The image is perfect: the leader of the world’s most valuable company, literally shaking as he offers tribute to a criminal regime, gold adorning gold in the gaudy corruption of what was once called the people’s house.
Mark Zuckerberg’s hot mic moment was even more revealing: “I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with,” he whispered to Trump after announcing that Meta would invest $600 billion in American AI infrastructure—a figure so astronomically absurd it would require borrowing more than twice the company’s total book value. The CEO of a publicly traded company admitting on live microphone that he fabricates financial projections based on whatever pleases the Dear Leader.
These aren’t isolated incidents of individual moral failure. They represent the systematic transformation of American capitalism from a system of competitive enterprise into a protection racket where tribute payments and loyalty demonstrations determine market outcomes. Every tech oligarch who showed up to grovel, every Fortune 500 CEO who stayed silent about constitutional destruction, every venture capitalist who treated systematic institutional capture as normal political transition—they’ve all participated in the conversion of free enterprise into oligarchic feudalism.
We have seen this before. German industrialists who thought they could use the Nazis while remaining untouched by them discovered too late that authoritarianism doesn’t respect prior arrangements or sophisticated calculations. When it suited Hitler’s purposes, their “pragmatic” collaboration became evidence of their expendability. The business leaders who enabled the regime found themselves consumed by it when their usefulness expired.
But at least those industrialists could claim they were operating under duress, facing a regime that had already seized power through violence. America’s business elite have chosen collaboration freely, calculating that accommodation serves their interests better than resistance. They’ve made this choice with full knowledge of what Trump represents, complete awareness of the constitutional destruction he’s implementing, and perfect understanding of the historical precedents they’re ignoring.
They cannot claim ignorance. They cannot plead coercion. They cannot appeal to patriotism or constitutional duty. They have chosen collaboration with full knowledge of what they’re collaborating with, and that choice will be remembered when the reckoning comes.
What makes their behavior particularly contemptible is how completely they’re destroying their own long-term interests through short-term accommodation. Every day of silence, every tribute payment, every legitimizing gesture serves to discredit the very system they claim to represent.
How do you maintain intellectual authority to defend market systems when you’ve demonstrated that market leaders will accommodate any political system that protects their immediate profits? How do you argue for principled governance when you’ve shown that business principles disappear the moment they become inconvenient? How do you claim capitalism serves human freedom when you’ve collaborated with forces systematically eliminating human freedom?
The center-right’s accommodation strategy assumes this regime will be temporary and normal politics will eventually resume. But they’re helping ensure that normal politics becomes impossible by legitimizing the very forces that are systematically destroying the conditions where competitive markets could function. Constitutional governance, rule of law, independent institutions, democratic accountability—all the prerequisites for legitimate capitalism are being eliminated with their silent consent or active participation.
When economic policies driven by personal loyalty rather than market logic begin producing the inevitable catastrophes—supply chain collapses, currency instability, institutional breakdown—the fury will focus not just on the regime but on those who enabled it through their cowardly calculation that accommodation was smarter than resistance.
Every Marxist critique of capitalism as inherently corrupt, inevitably authoritarian, and ultimately concerned only with profit maximization over human welfare is being validated in real-time by capitalists themselves. The theory that business interests will always choose fascism over democracy when their privileges are threatened is being proven correct by the very people who spent decades arguing it was unfair caricature.
They are demonstrating that when forced to choose between democratic principles and oligarchic access, between constitutional governance and regime favor, between defending the system that made their wealth possible and protecting the wealth itself—they will choose wealth every single time. They are confirming that capitalism has no loyalty except to capital, no principle except profit, no commitment except to whatever arrangement allows continued accumulation.
The golden plaques and fabricated investment figures will become iconic images in socialist propaganda for generations: capitalism revealing its true nature when tested, business leaders prostrating themselves before power, competitive markets dissolving into tribute economies. No amount of future lectures about entrepreneurial virtue will overcome the visual record of American business elite on their knees before a fascist regime.
When this regime falls—through electoral defeat, economic collapse, or internal contradictions—the business leaders who enabled it will discover that their “pragmatic” calculations were profound strategic errors. Their accommodation will be remembered not as wise adaptation but as moral cowardice that enabled systematic destruction of everything they claimed to value.
The political coalitions that historically defended market systems—educated professionals, constitutional conservatives, principled libertarians—have been systematically alienated by business leaders’ craven accommodation. The intellectual frameworks that justified competitive capitalism—innovation, merit, freedom, individual responsibility—have been discredited by capitalists’ own behavior under pressure.
What remains will be a population that has watched business leaders choose collaboration with authoritarianism over defense of democratic principles, watched them prioritize access over integrity, watched them demonstrate that all their rhetoric about freedom and competition was performance art covering crude calculations about power and profit.
The socialists won’t need to convince anyone that capitalism inevitably serves authoritarianism—the capitalists will have provided all the evidence anyone could need. The torches and pitchforks won’t be socialist organizing tools but democratic responses to documented collaboration with forces that destroyed democratic governance.
The most bitter irony is that they had every opportunity to be heroes. Business leaders who stood up to Trump, who defended constitutional principles despite economic costs, who chose democratic integrity over oligarchic access—they would have emerged from this crisis with enormous moral authority and political capital.
Instead, they chose the path that maximizes short-term comfort while ensuring long-term destruction. They preserved their wealth while discrediting the system that made wealth accumulation legitimate. They maintained their access while eliminating the institutions that made access meaningful.
They wanted to be remembered as pragmatic realists who navigated difficult circumstances with sophisticated calculation. They will be remembered as the useful idiots who handed socialists the perfect argument for why capitalism cannot coexist with democracy, why business interests inevitably choose authoritarianism when their privileges are threatened, why competitive markets inevitably become tribute economies when tested by authoritarian pressure.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And American business leaders are systematically destroying capitalism while claiming to defend it, validating every socialist critique through their own behavior, and ensuring that whatever emerges from this crisis will be far more hostile to market systems than anything they could have faced by choosing resistance over accommodation.
They thought they were being smart. They were being the cartoon villains in someone else’s revolution, writing their own obituaries in gold ink on tribute plaques presented to a fascist regime.
When the reckoning comes—and it is coming—they will have no one to blame but themselves for choosing temporary comfort over permanent legitimacy, immediate access over lasting authority, collaboration over courage.
The free market they claim to defend required defending. They chose collaboration instead. And they will reap exactly what they have sown.
Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus.
Filed Under: capitalism, capitulation, donald trump, fascism, mark zuckerberg, marxism, principles, tim cook
Companies: apple, meta
Comments on “How America’s Business Elite Became Their Own Marxist Caricature”
Look to Russia
Those powerful and wealthy people should look to Russia to see their likely fate: either they become totally subservient to the dictator or they “fall out of a window”.
Their short term greed will lead to their descendants being less wealthy, since the types of policies and just the wealth disparities they seek will reduce further economic growth.
Re:
You might also shoot yourself in the chest five times. You never know!
I fully support what Mike is saying about how companies kowtowed to authoritarianism. But I disagree with what the consequences will be.
Yes, they actively attacked democracy by bowing to Trump and rolling over when he came for money. Yes, they have lost all credibility when it comes to claiming any morality. But I don’t think they will be held accountable.
Those business “leaders” like Cook and Bezos will still leave with lots of money and not be blamed because the company was appeasing Trump. I dont think there will be a collective awakening when Trump is no longer president and people will, in sufficient number, rally against the wannabe oligarchs.
It is going to take a huge personalized upheaval event for each individual before the masses will hold companies or even politicians accountable.
The average American’s mind focuses too much on short-term incentives instead of planning to achieve long-term rewards.
Re:
No one should really be concerned if the wealthy ‘leave’ or how many assets they take with them, though.
Some or all of it can be seized, taxed, frozen or auctioned off.
That some of them will continue to have more of a public presence than anyone would like from the US is an issue but one that would also resolve itself without the U.S. based asset presence.
If you want to get at the oligarchs just ensure there’s nowhere they can move to but Saudi Arabia that won’t tax the remaining wealth in some way, shape, or form for even trying to move, while leaving it more untouched for lower net worth individuals with fewer assets and close as many loopholes as possible.
Fact of the matter is, as much as anyone fumes at it on a personal level, the wealth and institutional targets all matter far more than whether the wealthy elite maintain a public social media/propaganda presence because once forced out and the corporate veils pierced, they will rapidly lose their public megaphones or fail to use them effectively to stymie or regain their illiquid assets and real-estate being taxed,
auctioned or dismantled.
As cathartic as personal consequences would be to each individual, actual personal consequences or physical harm would needlessly add to the chaos of the actual necessary remedies which they regard as theft. Complete redistribution of their assets and the restatement of their role in a capitalist system as public servants with responsibilities to stakeholders and subordinate to the public is more important than putting any one individual in chains or terrorizing them.
You don’t NEED to do anything to the individuals themselves, merely make it impossible to access their wealth, and where possible, their media megaphones to object. The goal should be exile and voluntary self-deportation while ensuring no matter where they go the entire world taxes some chunk of their holdings so they are forced to make the choice to bend the knee to democratic socialism or lose it all.
Handing those markets over on a silver platter
They’ve also played right into the hands of any foreign government that has been telling their population that the US is not to be trusted, and that US companies are hopelessly compromised and must be either banned entirely or kept under strict control and oversight.
As I've repled elsewhere...
Capitalism was a reaction to too few people ( monarchs etc.) having power and wealth, and the moment capitalism reaches the same point, the reversion to feudalism should also be expected.
“Became”
It’s almost like Communist views of American capitalism were and continue to be correct. It’s becoming so obvious that more and more people find themselves unable to continue denying it.
Re:
“It’s not my fault if reality is Marxist.”
We will remember
> a population that has watched
and cheered!
There will be no reconing.. just a clutching to empty promises. If only the great leader had been more radical .. if only the “deep state” could have been vanquished sooner .. if only .. there will be enough excuses why paradise didn’t come with the ascent of the regime. Even that is consistent with the fall of regimes.
And while Bezos and Zuckerberg are the majority owners of their companies.. Cook is “just an employee” as MBAs never fail to point out. I seem to miss where in the picture all the shareholders are, and where their responsibility lies.
Well, a moment American capitalism genuflected before American fascism.
Those “professionals”, conservatives, and libertarians all hang out at right-wing think-tanks disparaging progressive economic ideas and social programs meant to counteract the inequalities that capitalism fuels and has fueled well before they bowed down to Trump. They used “innovation, merit, freedom, and individual responsibility” as rhetorical weapons to deny sensible regulations.
Capitalism is a trash system. I and many others have known this for ages.
The socialists were, and are, right. Capitalism never deserved “permanent legitimacy”. I fully welcome a socialist revival in the U.S. so that people can actually have their needs met.
Re:
We can be thankful to Trump for trying to push to declare Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, membership of which results in automatic criminal prosecution.
There’s a reason there was no domestic law against home-grown memberships, because declaration of the nullification of right-to-rule or right-to-campaign, freezing, seizure and dismantling of GOP campaign, donor, media and policy infrastructure will be essential.
Everything Trump does that violates precedent can and ought to be used to force reforms of the US Constitution and the First Amendment. At this point it’s already clear that a left-wing President and Administration may not get to come to power legally because of bad faith obstruction and may have to proceed accordingly in similarly fudging due process, such as the arrest and dismissal of some or all of SCOTUS (it would be painful but worth letting the current liberal jurists fade out of the public eye to get a slate of populist-left jurists with more spine than Garland and less of a corrupted congressional nomination process that let the six conservative jurists through in the first place)
A new left-wing administration coming to power may not do so completely legally and would still have to recognize it has to both hold accountable and take into account the opinions of a poisonous, willfully disaffected right-leaning independent voter populace https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2025/09/politics/independent-meaning-politics-poll-vis/
that will require mandatory voting legislation imposed on it and the option to do protest or throwaway votes for being dragged to polls with no options to vote any of them ‘like’ from willfully misunderstanding how voting and their prospects of victory or strategy works over time.
A left-wing democratic socialist administration should understand it cannot hold one-party rule for a long time and should have enough infrastructure in place to be willing to relinquish it so long as the GOP’s century long corrupt institutional advantages have been dismantled so the right leaning voters are forced to vote and govern in the sphere of reality again without having wealthy donors capable of holding a bulwark against reality for them. Then boring traditionally conservative ideas can be discussed again in good faith separate from corruption by its religious or wealthy voting blocs.
This is what someone writes when their mind and hand will not, cannot form the words “Marx was right.”
Re:
You are missing the point entirely I see.
Brock isn’t alluding that Marx was right, he is saying that the caricature Marxists used to describe all capitalists now fits the current crop of “financial elites” which seem to have no principles except money above everything else and getting in bed with fascism is just fine in that pursuit.
Milton Friedman
I believe the answer to all the rhetorical questions is reference to Friedman’s view that the only moral obligation corporations have is to shareholder value.
It is certainly reductivist, and I’d be delighted if the current moment shattered the consensus about that.