The Blast Radius of Jeff Epstein

I had something else planned to write for this week, but the House Oversight Committee released emails from dead sex trafficker/blackmailer Jeff Epstein, and they are wreaking havoc in D.C., with Trump exposed and then turning around and ordering the Justice Department to investigate prominent Democrats whose names came up. Trump’s relationship with Epstein is a significant political problem and is getting most of the headlines. But this scandal is also having an important effect inside the pro-monopoly faction of the Democratic Party.

The single most important neoliberal thinker of the last forty years - economist Larry Summers - had an extensive and deep political and personal relationship with Epstein. He was reportedly on Jeff Epstein’s plane, nicknamed the “Lolita Express,” when young girls were present, and he often discussed his personal and political problems with Epstein.

It’s important to offer some context on this sordid affair, and why it matters. There’s a tabloid aspect to the Epstein scandal, since it’s a lurid story of a mysterious former high school teacher who somehow became worth $600 million, was convicted of sex trafficking in 2008, and yet for years afterwards, had connections to many of the most important monopolists and politicians in the world. Bill Gates was a confidante of Epstein, so was Google co-founder Sergei Brin, Microsoft board member and “Abundance” backer Reid Hoffman, and private equity titan Leon Black. So were Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, and Ehud Barak. In other words, Summers and a bunch of powerful political elites are enmeshed in a scandal involving a network of, well, there’s no nice way to put it, globalist pedophile billionaires.

But it isn’t merely a tabloid story. It is also an important illustration of how our economic order functions. The Courier created a searchable database of the so-far released files, and if you go through some of it, it becomes clear that this elite network was as likely to be organizing African politics, the U.S. Treasury Secretary slot, or ideas around monopolies in the information economy as discussing sexual adventures. The Epstein files serve as a sort of sex offender registry list for the powerful, but more than that, a dramatic illustration of the two-tiered system of justice we despise.

It shouldn’t be hard to talk about this scandal. I mean, many of the people who went to Epstein’s island, like Reid Hoffman, are bitter foes of our ...