Camilo Lazo | National Chair of the American Party of Labor | Illinois–

Sure, I’ll admit that the term “Epstein Class” has a certain insult value. But I’m seeing more and people use that term in ways that are counterproductive, to say the least. Just as some people use the term “Crony Capitalism,” some are now saying “Epstein Class” to imply something that simply isn’t true.

While, yes, capitalism often involves nepotism, bribery, corruption, patronage, “palm-greasing” — all elements of cronyism — there is no “Crony Capitalism.” There is only capitalism. To use the phrase “Crony Capitalism” is to imply that there is some other form of capitalism, a purer, honest, virtuous capitalism. There isn’t. There is only capitalism.

Likewise, “Epstein Class” presupposes that there is a “NON-Epstein Class.” That there are corporate moguls and billionaires who are not corrupt, degenerate victimizers. There aren’t. There are only capitalists.

There are some who even posit that the “Epstein Class” is some kind of new and distinct strata of monopoly finance capital. It’s not. The “Epstein Class” is the same group that has been exploiting the labor and abusing the vulnerability of the poor and marginalized since the Industrial Revolution — and before. Whether it’s a young girl tricked by promises of celebrity and fame on a fantasy island, or a young girl deceived by offers of a “high paying job” in the big city, or lured to work as a “nanny” in the local Lord’s estate, it’s all the same. And it’s been going on for centuries.

Epstein himself was not some grand criminal mastermind, some supervillain who gained the trust of the rich and powerful only to wrest their secrets from them. If he were, he would not have been, likely, murdered in his cell. Jeffrey Epstein was a pimp. Like all high-class pimps, whether serving Louis XIV or Edward VII, or the Clintons and Trumps, Epstein gained access to “blackmail material.” But also, like all high-class pimps before him, he may have achieved a level of affluence and influence for a time, yet was ultimately expendable and discarded.

There is no “Epstein Class.” There is only monopoly finance capital, and the occasional leeches, parasites, and remoras who seek to profit by serving the lusts and perversions of their “betters,” only to find themselves flushed down the toilet when they are no longer convenient.

Categories: American Party of Labor, Editorials, U.S. News