What is the Issue?

Two Recent Events 

A month ago, Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, and a few days ago, Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare was shot to death. The two events do not appear to be related, but they are symptoms of the parlous state of American Democracy. Mr. Thompson’s killer has been seen on social media as a kind of folk hero, and the shooting as a legitimate protest against the inhumanity of health insurance companies. Mr. Trump ran for president successfully as a kind of voice of the common people against an oppressive elite. Thus, both events are symptoms of a political and economic system that millions of Americans feel is rigged against them, and they are not wrong.

A Rigged System

We live in a system in which an outlandish share of the wealth and the income is held by a tiny minority of wealthy people. In one of the world’s richest countries, millions of hardworking people struggle to pay their rent or feed their children. We live in a country with some of the most advanced medical care in the world but where unexpected illness is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy. The injustice of our system is plainly visible to everyone, and deaths of despair have become ever more frequent in recent years.

Capitalism and Democracy

In his book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf argues that liberal, representative democracy and market capitalism depend on each other but that their mutually supportive relationship is fragile. It depends in each country on a tacit bargain that capitalism will deliver an acceptable level of living to all of the country’s citizens. Otherwise, they will see that the system is rigged against them, and they may turn to authoritarian, anti-democratic leaders who promise to remedy their distress. Thus, a capitalist system that fails to live up to the tacit bargain that makes it compatible with democracy will inevitably render that democracy unstable. That is the situation in which we find ourselves today.

Wolf suggests that the elements of an acceptable level of living include:

• Prosperity
• Opportunity
• Security
• Dignity

Our system produces a high level of national prosperity, but it falls short on the other three elements for millions of our people, and so, unsurprisingly, the system has become unstable.

The Propaganda of the Deed

This is not to say that either the election of Trump or the shooting of Thompson is a rational, response to the injustices of our society. It has always been clear that Trump’s “populism” is fake, and his recent cabinet appointments have made the fakery even clearer. Similarly, the shooting of Thompson will probably not have much affect on our health insurance system. The shooting of Thompson looks very much like “the propaganda of the deed” of the anarchists of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It is an act of political desperation by a person who believes that all of the usual approaches to political change are blocked.

The election of Trump is the fruit of a political culture in which lying by our politicians and our government have eroded our sense of truth and morality. Today, many people believe that no politicians or institutions of government are trustworthy. Trump does not lie more than the rest, but at least his lies seem sympathetic to millions of voters. We need change - they believe - and that is what he promises. So, why not take a chance? If our system is rigged against people like us, maybe we should tear it down and try something else.

That is exactly the situation that Wolf describes in his book. Capitalism run amuck has broken the bargain that says that it must produce a decent standard of living for all of the people, and so, it has become incompatible with representative democracy. If we want to preserve our democracy, we will have to rein in our capitalism. 

We Must Frame the Issues in Economic and Sociological Terms

If we want to rein in our capitalism, we will have to think about the issues involved in economic and social-structural terms rather than psychological ones. We cannot deal with issues of this scale in terms of the psychologies of specific persons. The question to be answered is not why particular individuals voted for Trump or what specifically drove Luigi Mangione to shoot Brian Thompson. The question is what is it about our society and our economy that causes millions of people to vote for a man like Trump and that drives a young man to risk his life in an act of propaganda of the deed?