America's Oligarchy Problem Goes Beyond Trump
For several years oligarchs in San Francisco have been trying to influence politics. They have made gains recently.
A charitable way to describe the Democratic Party since the Donald Trump’s victory in the November election is that they have struggled to find their sea legs. Many Democratic elected officials have been unable to develop either a message or strategy that inspires or mobilizes voters. A significant exception to this has been the relative success progressives and Democrats have enjoyed in attacking the Trump regime by explaining that it is an oligarchy.
Bernie Sanders, nominally an independent but a de facto Democrat, as well as Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) have drawn huge crowds and generated enormous excitement with their Fighting Oligarchy Tour. Sanders and AOC’s message is resonating because Trump has surrounded himself with oligarchs, like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others, who are enormously wealthy and care little about anything other than making even more money and, in some cases, pursuing their strange and dangerous fantasies about reorganizing society in ways that will only make life more difficult for poor and working Americans.
Donald Trump is hardly the first American politician, or president, to be extremely wealthy, but the corruption, access and power given to others who are among the richest Americans, as well as the disregard for democratic institutions that have defined Trump’s presidency are all hallmarks of oligarchy. As a new American oligarchy emerges in Washington, it might be useful to probe other places in the country where oligarchy is taking hold.
One of these places is San Francisco. Even before Daniel Lurie, a billionaire born into extraordinary wealth, was elected mayor-in large part by outspending his major opponents by between three and six to one-oligarchy was rearing its head in this city.
San Francisco is uniquely vulnerable to oligarchy because it is a relatively small city that is home to global wealth. That means that, for example, starting an influential newspaper, which for a billionaire like Michael Moritz costs essentially nothing, can have an significant impact on the political discourse of the city.
Similarly, organizations like GrowSF, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and TogetherSF are particularly influential in San Francisco because donor money, from people who have made hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in tech, goes further in a city the size of San Francisco than it might in a New York or Los Angeles. Additionally, while San Francisco, or more accurately, some neighborhoods in San Francisco, may feel like a one-industry small town, it has a much greater role in national, and even global, politics and culture, than almost any other city its size.
Getting back to the new mayor, the fact of Lurie being a billionaire whose family fortune goes back to the Gold Rush, does not make it axiomatic that Lurie is an oligarch, but it certainly means we should be aware of the possibility. Unfortunately, only a few months into his term, there is already reason to be concerned about Lurie’s oligarchical tendencies. Lurie’s inclination towards oligarchy begins with mayor’s air of noblesse oblige, but that is more of a political disposition than concrete evidence of oligarchy. More disturbing is his tendency to surround himself with, and defer to, the alleged wisdom of San Francisco’s wealthiest.
The first moment Lurie’s oligarchical tendencies became too strong to ignore was when he appointed Sam Altman of OpenAI to be one of the co-chairs of this transition team. This was occurring just as Altman was making his pitch to be in Trump’s oligarchal inner circle.
Moreover, Lurie has consistently deferred to the alleged wisdom of the wealthiest San Franciscans. He has created councils of wealthy advisors to give the CEO perspective, whatever that means, and has raised money from rich San Franciscans to address the city’s problems. Lurie has also sometimes aligned himself with ultra-rich tech interests who have either supported or adjacent too tech-fascism and the Network State.
While it is unfair and inaccurate to suggest that Lurie is as venal, unstable, cruel or avaricious as the President, it is reasonable to probe those oligarchical tendencies. For example, recently Lurie created a street-cleaning initiative that will be funded in part by Michael Moritz and Chris Larsen. Moritz and Larsen are both aspiring oligarchs whose budding relationship with Lurie is concerning. There is nothing wrong with clean streets-and nothing wrong with those with the deepest pockets contributing the most to that project, but the way to do that in a democracy is through a transparent governance, tax policy and budget-making, not by simply relying on the goodwill of the very wealthy.
By removing key city services such as street-cleaning from democratic governance and accountability, Lurie is creating a network of exchanging favors that is personal. In other words, Larsen and Moritz are doing something for Lurie and will expect something back. Defenders of these oligarchs will argue that maybe they just want cleaner streets.
I agree that the oligarchs want cleaner streets-as do most San Franciscans, but the notion that is all they want is prima facie laughable. Larsen and Moritz are doing this either because Lurie is already doing something to help them, perhaps by supporting a development project or a pet political idea-Moritz is among other things a real estate developer, and Larsen has fetishized police surveillance. There is plenty Lurie can do for them in both those areas.
Lurie may be doing some good things as mayor, but at the end of the day he is in that job because of his extraordinary personal wealth and has given disproportionate access and influence to other ultra-rich San Franciscans. It is also the case that Lurie is not nearly as bad as Trump, and comparing the two does a genuine disservice to Lurie. However, it is also true that not all oligarchs are, like Trump, fascists, and that oligarchy, even in a relatively benign form, is bad for democracy. Ultimately, those of us who oppose Trump’s oligarchy in Washington are hypocritical if we turn a blind eye to oligarchies or semi-oligarchies at the more local level.