The rise of anti-corporate terror?

Crimes are usually not meant to be too farsighted. Yet some crimes, especially assassinations, serve as a warning for the coming times. The assassins of Archduke Franz Ferdinand could not possibly imagine that their action would lead to such a massive and epoch-making conflict which would permanently alter the course of history. Yet it did. We got the First World War, the Second, and some of the worst regimes in history, like Nazis and fascists. The crime we will discuss today threatens to be of similar significance.

At 6.45 AM Eastern time, a masked individual on an electric bike shot dead Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, America's largest health insurer. The incident occurred in front of New York Hilton Midtown, a busy hotel, where he had just arrived to attend a meeting. The masked assassin escaped the scene, leaving behind a burner phone and a discarded coffee cup. The investigations are still underway, and this crime could have easily been dismissed as an isolated act of an aggrieved consumer or then a hit by a criminal gang but for a curious detail.

The bullet casings found at the site of the crime had engravings on them. The inscription read "deny, depose, defend". These words are almost similar to "delay, deny, defend", common malpractice attributed to insurance companies that stall the claims process, frustrate the policyholders, refuse to honour the claims, and aggressively prosecute to avoid payouts. There is a book titled Delay, Deny, Defend by Jay M Feinman, a law professor and an insurance industry critic. The slight difference may indicate a more confrontationist approach. "Depose" could easily reference legal depositions, which usually favour corporations rather than individual consumers. Or it could be a call to radical action to overthrow the alleged tyranny of big business.

That is not all. Those who have handled live ammunition know bullet casings are made of hard materials like brass, steel or aluminium. It is difficult for an unskilled individual to carve a tiny message on such materials. Add to it the fact that you are doing it to a live round, and this becomes a very tricky proposition for the engraver. You either have to be totally obsessed with the undertaking or highly skilled. For a lone wolf to have disparate skills like engraving on bullet casings, tracking an individual, plotting an attack, carrying it out and escaping without any immediate trace is a tall order. This would suggest sophisticated planning by a group. Only groups can keep so many moving parts together. A group would indicate the presence of an underground movement.

Remember this could turn out to be a simple case of one seriously aggrieved and obsessed individual's action. It is not impossible. But if it were a movement, could it be only insurance industry-specific? The timing would suggest otherwise.

As I write these lines, the investigations have led to the CCTV footage of the alleged assailant as he checked into a hostel before the event. But they haven't been able to account for his time since he arrived in the city last month from Atlanta, Georgia.

The timing is important because Donald Trump just won the election and will be sworn in about forty days. With him came the world's richest man, Elon Musk and a bunch of other rich folks. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, another member of the Three Comma club, are to head the newly announced department of government efficiency (DOGE). Apart from dogecoin and Doge memes on the internet, the word doge has some historical significance, too. It is derived from the Venetian dialect and means leader or duke. An apt word for billionaire populism that seems to swarming our political world. If you recall my previous several columns on such subjects, especially "The House Always Wins", dated September 21, I have consistently pointed to the possibility of a corporatocratic oligarchy seizing power.

In that particular piece, I mentioned a series called "Continuum", where such an elite seizes power and installs a "corporate congress". The sci-fi story unfolds as a struggle between elite capture and violent resistance that uses terrorism to defeat it. I was reminded of scenes from the series during Trump's previous rule when the far-right activists and antifa counter-protesters clashed. It is mind-boggling that during that tenure, so many extremist groups, from Proud Boys to accelerationist Boogaloo Boys, came out of the woodwork. But back in those days, the divide was less defined. Many kept labouring under the delusion that it was some Nazi-like fascist takeover. The fascistic element was more of a distraction than a goal. In reality, the rich wanted to preserve the privileges Obama had accorded them. A government that invested heavily in foreign policy or forever wars was not their liking. This time, their role is more pronounced. Sign of the times, really. Privilege is an interesting thing. You can use it or lose it.

In his Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty has already exposed the unbridgeable gap between the rich and the poor. The situation is worsened by the upcoming technological shift, which propelled Nobel laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson to write Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, warning that the balance between capital and labour could get out of control in the age of mutating technology like AI. They advocate an active role for civil society organisations, checks and balances, effective regulation and constant vigilance. This is when billionaires have found a way to seize control of projects like DOGE. They want to bring down government bureaucracies before they are forced to pay their due. The resentment is bound to grow.

It is not as if the other side is devoid of logic. Argentina's example is before us, where annual inflation had risen to over 200 per cent prior to Javier Milei, and now things have improved significantly after he cut bureaucracy. But these are tricky times, and most of the risks the rich and powerful take come at the cost of the poor and the working class.

Regardless of whether it was a lone wolf attack or organised terrorism, the friction between the rich and the poor is about to grow exponentially. And it can lead to the creation of two parallel, opposite and constantly clashing worlds. Can Trump manage all this and make the world a better place? We don't know. Let's hope the American people saw some real and outstanding quality in him which still eludes his critics. Otherwise, that's all, folks.