Stalin
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- Apr 4, 2008
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The theory of the mafia state was first elaborated by the Hungarian sociologist Bálint Magyar in 2016. Such a state is less about corruption where envelopes change hands under the table. Instead, public procurement is rigged; large companies are brought under the control of regime-friendly oligarchs, who in turn acquire media to provide favorable coverage to the ruler. The beneficiaries are what Magyar calls the “extended political family” (which can include the ruler’s natural family). As with the mafia, unconditional loyalty is the price for being part of the system.
As so often with Trump 2.0, practices that other regimes try to veil have been unashamedly in the open: the “pausing” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act signaled that the US is not only open for business but also bribing (be it with a jet or a fake prize from Fifa); not only do pardons appear to be for sale; and not only can companies curry favor by financing a grotesque ballroom – but also the president’s political family, which includes billionaires like Steve Witkoff and Howard Lutnick, seems poised to profit handsomely, including from foreign deals, and now foreign military adventures; according to the investigative reporter Judd Legum, the Trump oligarch Paul Singer (owner of the oil company Citgo), is to set to do very well with a Trump-controlled government in Caracas.
This does not mean that the US’s “special military operation” in Venezuela is entirely a matter of “it’s the oil, stupid”; there is an argument that it helps push back against Iran, China and Russia (even if the precedent that killing 40 people and kidnapping sets also legitimizes interventions by other powers, as those lamenting the weakening of international law have rightly pointed out). There is also the old-style neoconservative justification for removing a tyrant from power, something that the former self of Marco Rubio, before bending the knee, would have favored – though leaving a decapitated regime in place has made talk of democracy and human rights protection a tad implausible. But the point is not regime change, as long as a regime is fine with Trumpian exploitation. The alternative is extortion: if the US oil companies get “total access”, the rulers of what is also a mafia state of sorts can stay in place; if not, it’s a bigger boss talking to a minor boss along the lines of: “Nice country you have there; pity if we had to do a full-scale invasion.”
What really gives the game away is the almost immediate follow-up chatter not just about Cuba, but about Greenland. Aboard Air Force One, Trump, Lutnick and Lindsey Graham had a good – in fact, obscene – laugh about the supposed inability of Denmark to provide security in the Arctic Circle; the joke that had the sycophants in stitches consisted of saying that Denmark was now providing one more dog sled for security (the reality is that Copenhagen recently decided to send new naval vessels and surveillance drones – though an important elite dog-sled patrol does actually exist). In any case, the US has long had a base in Greenland and in many ways used the territory as it saw fit: despite a Danish policy against nuclear weapons, during the cold war, the US started flying nuclear-armed B-52s over Greenland, and they did so, it turned out, with the tacit consent of the Danish government (some footage of Dr Strangelove was filmed over Greenland). What Danish politicians are only slowly realizing is that the main issue isn’t national security, but the Trumpian euphemism of “economic security”.
www.theguardian.com
comrade stalin
moscow
As so often with Trump 2.0, practices that other regimes try to veil have been unashamedly in the open: the “pausing” of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act signaled that the US is not only open for business but also bribing (be it with a jet or a fake prize from Fifa); not only do pardons appear to be for sale; and not only can companies curry favor by financing a grotesque ballroom – but also the president’s political family, which includes billionaires like Steve Witkoff and Howard Lutnick, seems poised to profit handsomely, including from foreign deals, and now foreign military adventures; according to the investigative reporter Judd Legum, the Trump oligarch Paul Singer (owner of the oil company Citgo), is to set to do very well with a Trump-controlled government in Caracas.
This does not mean that the US’s “special military operation” in Venezuela is entirely a matter of “it’s the oil, stupid”; there is an argument that it helps push back against Iran, China and Russia (even if the precedent that killing 40 people and kidnapping sets also legitimizes interventions by other powers, as those lamenting the weakening of international law have rightly pointed out). There is also the old-style neoconservative justification for removing a tyrant from power, something that the former self of Marco Rubio, before bending the knee, would have favored – though leaving a decapitated regime in place has made talk of democracy and human rights protection a tad implausible. But the point is not regime change, as long as a regime is fine with Trumpian exploitation. The alternative is extortion: if the US oil companies get “total access”, the rulers of what is also a mafia state of sorts can stay in place; if not, it’s a bigger boss talking to a minor boss along the lines of: “Nice country you have there; pity if we had to do a full-scale invasion.”
What really gives the game away is the almost immediate follow-up chatter not just about Cuba, but about Greenland. Aboard Air Force One, Trump, Lutnick and Lindsey Graham had a good – in fact, obscene – laugh about the supposed inability of Denmark to provide security in the Arctic Circle; the joke that had the sycophants in stitches consisted of saying that Denmark was now providing one more dog sled for security (the reality is that Copenhagen recently decided to send new naval vessels and surveillance drones – though an important elite dog-sled patrol does actually exist). In any case, the US has long had a base in Greenland and in many ways used the territory as it saw fit: despite a Danish policy against nuclear weapons, during the cold war, the US started flying nuclear-armed B-52s over Greenland, and they did so, it turned out, with the tacit consent of the Danish government (some footage of Dr Strangelove was filmed over Greenland). What Danish politicians are only slowly realizing is that the main issue isn’t national security, but the Trumpian euphemism of “economic security”.
The Trump doctrine exposes the US as a mafia state | Jan-Werner Müller
The Venezuela incursion is in line with this logic, made even plainer as the US eyes Greenland
comrade stalin
moscow
