As more and more files are released about the reach and breadth of Jeffrey Epstein’s dealings, and all sides of the political spectrum dig through the clumsily redacted trove for smoking guns pointed at their political opponents, various hot takes on the “global pedo conspiracy” inevitably arise, framing this as some kind of uniquely damaging cabal of elites, a playground of insiders and psychopaths whose individual morality – or complete lack therof – are held under the microscope, and named participants make individual moves to deflect or protect themselves from the blowback.
While not a bad thing, for these things to come to light – although “listening to the hundreds of victims” was a choice that could have been made long ago to limit these people’s access to power – it misses a bigger picture here.
This is what the apex predators of wealth and power do. It’s what they have always done. It is what they will always do. It’s at the core of the identity and driving forces behind every single person who aspires to and achieves that level of wealth and power. It is as intrinsic to the class as conspicuous consumption and political interference. It goes back to the very first civilizations of hominids, that feeding the id through the unreasonable accretion of resources, the consolidation of the power and wealth required to do whatever the fuck a person wants at any moment, without consequence.
It is, like many of these toxic socioeconomic constructs, pathological in nature, a corruption of the human psyche, a product of an environment that is completely uninhabitable by humans. Yes, this sounds hyperbolic, but it’s demonstrably true, and we are living at the end of an era of sociopolitical facilitation for these types of apex predators of capitalism borne of decades of Right Wing policy, war, disaster capitalism, and a breakdown in the larger social order.
Allow me to explain.
We have discussed in past papers what we call the Conqueror’s Fantasy, the delusional, idealized and externalized dream of sitting atop a throne made of the skulls of ones’ enemies, in a massive palace full of underage concubines and terrified slaves. We posit that this is the fundamental fantasy that lies at the heart of the desire for conquest, for acquisition, for domination. This identity, in myriad, inchoate forms, is the mythical endpoint of power and wealth. It is not only Nero and Caligula, but Trump and Putin.
When one sets one’s sights on power and wealth as their end goal, with no purpose for those things but those things themselves, it is the expression of those things that become the validators of that identity. In other words, if you quest for money and power for their own sake, you must perform having money and perform having power in order to validate that identity. You do this by grand acquisitions, random benevolence, fulfilling your own extravagant whims, and bending the world around you to your will, especially by inflicting pain and suffering on those who cannot defend themselves.
Nothing performs “unchecked power” like mass cruelty to vulnerable populations. It’s not just “divide and conquer” as a political strategy. It is a pathological performance of power that requires regular – daily – adherence to stoke the dopamine of validation. It’s not just that Hitler “hated the Jews”, it’s that he was psychologically compelled to perform his power over them by escalating emmiserations, culminating in genocide. It starts with what you can get away with, what your power allows, and then, as you gather more to your cause – people who also fall into the trap of the emotional utility of a group identity validated by power, by “winning” – your power grows, allowing for – and necessitating – greater cruelty against larger groups. As the in-group grows, so does the need to create more and more out-groups.
The seeming disconnect between the myriad, unrelated populations targeted by the Trump administration, the clumsy, indiscriminate nature of the ICE raids, in politically targeted areas against visible and advertised populations, the inability to follow legal protocols, the performativity on social media, the soundbites and posturing, all point to this not being an ideologically consistent methodology to achieve a political goal, but a broken, chaotic attempt to get a massive horde of narcissists their daily validation. The reason why there’s nothing but chaos is becasue the performativity is the entire point, for both the participants and the followers who post about every confrontation or arrest as “winning”.
We’ve linked this to NPD before, and that pathology stands. Functionally, this is all about the immense emotional utility of external, idealized, delusional identities that flourish when performed and validated by these acts of group psycopathy. We’ve talked about how this narcissism is transferred to the greater populace in our piece on fascism, so you can read that if you want more on that. But let’s focus on the top of the pyramid here.
Here’s a truth we never see: human beings are not built to handle extreme wealth, power, or fame. It is impossible for a human psyche to survive the warping nature of these environments. It is as traumatizing and as dismantling as extreme poverty, which we are also not built to handle. These environments are so divorced from the reality of human experience, that authentic, healthy identities and grounded senses of reality are literally impossible.
If the trauma of poverty is the fundamental narrative of “you’re a piece of shit and you deserve all the bad things”, the trauma of extreme wealth, power, or fame is its’ inverse: “you’re a golden god, and you deserve all the good things”. Neither of these are in any way a solid foundation for a healthy sense of self. They are both insidious lies that must be overcome, but they are baked into the very environment in which one exists. It is like trying to get a fish to reject water.
If the godhood lie is at the core of what a person seeks in the first place, to feel that imagined endpoint of the Conqueror’s Fantasy, going from one of those to the other is shockingly easy. However, even the most dedicated, healthy, grounded humans cannot remain so in that environment. The gravity of that corrupting lie, and the ease with which it makes itself evident is The One Ring of class identity. Corruption is inevitable. We as humans have no real defense for it. In the millions of years since we crawled out of the sea, the ten thousand or so years that these levels of extremity have even been a thing is an evolutionary blink. From beloved children’s author or real life Tony Stark to violent transphobe or actual fucking Nazi, power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
No one really seems to know where Epstein first made his money. He went from being an unlicensed teacher to working at Bear Sterns in “various roles”, and then started his own firm. While apparently gifted in mathematics, he had no formal economic or financial training. He was “good with elite clients”, whatever that meant at the time. But it is clear that his goal was money, power, and a lifestyle absolutely modeled on the Conqueror’s Fantasy. As he rose in the financial ranks, handling billions of dollars for elite clients, he eventually joined their ranks at the top of the fountain, as it were.
Whether Epstein was a psychopath or a narcissist before embarking on this journey is interesting, but immaterial. His journey exemplifies the endpoint as much for the self-made man as it does to the nepo-est of babies. By the time he had “pedo island” money, his proclivities were already in evidence. It is not much of a stretch to point out that the violation and victimization of young girls fills the same need for validation that political targeting of vulnerable groups does.
“I am the Conqueror, and I can do anything I want, and I will prove it to you” fits Epstein’s modus operandi as much as Trump’s ICE raids, MBS’ corporate acquisitions and extravagant parties featuring performances by the biggest pop stars on the planet, or Elon Musk’s acquisition of twitter and manhandling of the 2024 election in order to dismantle the aid structure to ensure the deaths of millions of poverty-stricken Africans, most of them children. All of these fit the gestalt of performative power, performative wealth, feeding the daily need for validation of ones’ place in the hierarchy, right at the tippy top. It is a function of the class structure. Even the clandestine and illicit nature of sex trafficking children has it’s own “wink wink see what I can do and no one can stop me” thrill to it that feeds that delusional ego.
It is impossible to communicate to most people just how different life is at that level, and where that level is. This isn’t just “fuck you” money, this is “fuck you all forever” money. These are people that haven’t seen a human being they weren’t paying to be there in years. These people never interact with anyone outside those circles. It is as cloistered as a nunnery, with their own planes,, their own resorts, their own boats, their own enclaves, their own restaurants, their own conferences, their own islands. They literally do not have to see a single person they do not want to see. Their lives consist of nothing but people who make their living off them, and their fellow elites. The guard rails of “regular people and regular society” not only don’t exist, guard rails as a concept are anathema.
These cultures go back, as I said, to the dawn of our species. And as each newly minted member of the Epstein class floats in the comforting stream of identity reconstruction into the competition, acquisition, and expression of wealth and power that is the only validator in that arena, they bask in what seems like never-ending adoration and deification. That becomes the identity, that supremacy, that deification, that godhood. They can literally do no wrong, and when called out, they will either succeed in deflecting, or they will collapse. There is no reset.
The truly fascinating thing about Epstein is that he sat at the confluence of both the financial sector and criminal sex services sector, a one stop shop for people looking to increase their access to both more wealth and more depravity, again, feeding that Conqueror’s Fantasy, even if only to visit the palace full of underage sex slaves, and go on pretending that it is just part of the Mandate of Heaven given to you by the obvious hands of a beneficent god, proof of His blessing, that everything you do is just and right, and your due, because you are just that flawless, that special, and that above not just the law, but morality and ethicality itself.
This howling narcissism is found in our churches, in our courts, in our industries, in our politics, in our organizations that gather these people together. Anywhere there is power, anywhere there is money, there are those who crave it for its’ own sake, for the Conquerors’ Fantasy. This is Bill Gates, noted Harvard dropout, whose only real skill was as a software engineer, who made his billions enforcing a monopoly on the blood of other companies, with substandard products that were forced on users who had no choice, thinking that he had the fucking brilliance to fix fucking schools. This is Dennis Prager thinking that he can rewrite American History from the perspective of the bad guys and presenting this as heroic work. This is Charlie Kirk throwing waves of racist fallacies at college kids, this is Tucker Carlson existing as whatever contrarian, reactionary dogshit persona he feels will advance his access to the Conquerors’ Fantasy, Joe Rogan thinking that he’s a serious thinker with critical analyisis skills, the list is horrifically endless.
This is the hubris of success, that success in one thing means success in all things, a delusion reinforced and facilitated by more and more of your environment as you progress into more and more rarefied air. The more people you make money for, the more deference, the more unreal, the more sycophantic your environment becomes. This hubris took down Lizzo and Ellen, nowhere near the zenith of this class. But that shows the corrosive, corrupting nature of wealth. power and fame. And if it happens to those who can’t handle mere tens or hundreds of millions, what do you think the billionaire brainrot is doing? It’s a spectrum, and the higher you go, the more likely you will hit your personal limit of reality and bend the knee to your insufferable, insatiable id. You hear that, Mister Anderson? That is the sound…of inevitability.
Look, are they all blood drinking pedos with a hidden room of Nazi memorabilia they wear around the house while moving elections around like chess pieces? No, of course not. But is the propensity for a variety of delusional breaks from reality heightened at that level, or even inevitable? Yeah, I would posit so. Everyone has their breaking point, some earlier than others, some tied to the breaking of their delusional, idealized identity before reaching that level of wealth – look at Steven Crowder or Rusell Brand for what a narcissistic collapse looks like. It’s arguable that both Elon Musk and J.K Rowling’s villain era began when they faced the slightest backlash, the mildest challenge to their idealized identities as beloved figures. Identity collapse in people with these types of personality disorders is a violent, destructive, world ending trauma, and they will punish us every day they can for it.
Epstein was the absolute modern apotheosis of the Conquerors’ Fantasy, which lies at the heart of both Capitalism and Right Wing ideology. He exemplifies the effect of the hyperwealthy, the hyperpowerful. Even if they do not share his specific proclivities, there isn’t a single one of them that doesn’t have blood on their hands, and a need to validate that godhood identity. As a class, they are as much Epstein as he was one of them. That’s why his reach was so far and so wide, with both the usual suspects and shocking culprits. In the larger sense, though, it doesn’t matter to our discussion who is or isn’t guilty of what – that is for the wheels of justice to decide – as much as it does the recognition of his pathology, the pathology inherent in that class as a whole, and that it is baked into the very process of hyperacquisition, of power.
We point all this out not to deflect from the horrific sex crimes and laundry list of the rich and powerful who deserve swift and exacting justice, none more than our molester in chief. Our focus is socioeconomic, and a concern with the meta lessons we can learn from these specific horrifying revelations.
I feel it important to recognize that income inequality isn’t just about justice, or liberation. It is a vital public health tool to keep people out of environments that are absolutely fatal to human beings, both literally and in the more figurative sense of destroying the process of self actualization, a process required for healthy participation in a pluralist democracy. Extreme poverty and extreme wealth are destroying our species across the globe, and as climate crisis looms ever closer, this addiction to the wealth and power Epstein fed on and exemplified could literally kill us all.
If we are to save democracy, freedom, and a healthy way of life for all humans, we need to not only get rid of people like Epstein, we need to get rid of the Epstein class itself.
Kelsoland.Institute 