Elon Musk and Executive Predators

Elon Musk is in the news again, this time for creeping on a young female subordinate. In a lawsuit brought against the real-life Joiler Veppers, several female subordinates accuse Musk of various, frankly pathetic, misconduct. Last year, Musk was accused of demanding a female subordinate provide him with sex, apparently in exchange for a horse (lol). These allegations demonstrate a pattern of sexual misconduct by the billionaire, and one imagines that there will be even more stories of a similar nature that emerge in the future.

Another famous and powerful man, and (alleged) pedophile, former US President Bill Clinton, is notorious for having his then 22-year old intern, Monica Lewinsky, perform sex work for him, specifically by providing the president with a blowjob in the Oval Office. Clinton was impeached for the affair, but by far the worst of the attention was focused on Lewinsky herself, who famously suffered abuse and bullying for her affair with the president. Until recently, women who were abused by powerful men were expected to keep silent about their experiences, and women who come forward still suffer a stigma for voicing their oppression.

While liberals are fond of identifying these instances of sexual exploitation by men in positions of power as the misguided actions by a minority of so-called bad apples, the phenomenon is in fact neither exclusively male, nor is it limited to a few bad actors. In fact, this behaviour is both widespread, and an inevitable systemic issue that arises because of the fundamental relationship between the powerful, those who own and rule, and the powerless, those who are owned and ruled. Slave masters were very fond of raping their slaves, and in some instances, fathering children with those slaves, who were then themselves enslaved by their fathers.

From a psychological point of view, this behavior makes perfect sense; whether it be a businessman, a president, or a prince, these people are given almost limitless power over their subordinates, and they use that power primarily for the purpose of exploitation, generally exploitation of labour. This makes these people predators, humans who prey on other humans for material gain. Why then, shouldn't these people switch from one form of predation to another, from the exploitation of labour to the exploitation of sex work? For a predator, who views other human beings as objects to be exploited, the switch must seem natural, almost instinctual.

The solution to these problems is not to 'cancel' the few predators who are so incautious as to be publicly exposed, but rather to 'cancel' the entire social and economic system which enables and rewards this behaviour. So long as a tiny clique of wealthy and powerful people are given the right to own people as they own property, this behaviour will continue, and no amount of legislative reform will prevent these people from taking what they view as their rightful gain.

The exploitation of women does not happen in a vacuum. To analyze these instances of misconduct in isolation is to blind oneself to the underlying cause for that misconduct, and ultimately to enable and reward that misconduct, resulting in a perpetual state of misery and harm to generations of vulnerable women and workers.

Elon Musk is not the problem. Bill Clinton is not the problem. Capitalism is the problem. An injustice to one is an injustice to all.