Tuesday, 14 July 2020, 3:02 pmOpinion: Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement

The rich become that way because they work hard toprovide the everyday things that our nation needs. So runsthe story that underpins the economic system we live under.Its something that is so taken for granted, it often goesuncommented upon. It seems as natural and obvious as sun insummer or chocolate fish tasting like chocolate rather thanfish. Other times you will see the corporate media activelypropagating this idea somewhere in the business section ofyour paper. By the way, thats the bit you often skip overto get to the crossword at the back, in case you werentsure what that was. Overall, it feels like theres notmuch to be said about it, right? Wrong.

TheNational Business Review (https://www.nbr.co.nz/ )isone of the key information organs of those who runcapitalism here. Its worth reading now and then. It tellsyou what our masters think is important. The NBR publishesan annual list of the local richest individuals. At presentthe top person on that list is Graeme Hart, with a fortuneof approximately $10 billion. However, the news of themoment is that he may be eclipsed by somebody called PeterThiel. If you know who he is, thats great, but chancesare most of us dont. Stop and think about that for asecond. Here is nearly the richest individual on theseislands and you probably dont know his name, what exactlyhe does or what he looks like.

So who isThiel? He was born in Germany but mostly grew up in theUnited States and was living in California when he firstcame to attention here. Thats because it was discoveredin 2017 that he had been granted fast-tracked New Zealandcitizenship in 2011 despite only having spent 12 days here!(https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11883554).The reason was not that he had escaped a war torn countryand desperately needed asylum, but simply he had put lots ofmoney into some businesses here.

There aresome aspects of his investment history that (if you wantedto be very generous), you could argue have been relativelybenign and possibly even useful, such as PayPal. In othercases he got in on the ground floor of things and did wellfor himself, such as an early stake in Facebook. On theother hand, there are some downright dodgy aspects to how heaccumulated his wealth.

In 2004 Thielco-founded an outfit called Palantir. This is a softwarecompany that could best be described as handmaidens to thetotalitarian surveillance society. Thats because theywork closely with an alphabet soup of nice organisationslike the CIA, NSA, ICE and the FBI to mine huge amounts ofonline data from electronic surveillance. As for aconnection to local spies, according to media sources here,the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and GovernmentCommunications Security Bureau (GCSB) will neither confirmor deny if they are clients of Palantir. However, they havean office in Wellington and the GCSB have advertised forstaff that know Palantirs software. Thats about asclose to a smoking gun as you can get! Other research hasexposed that the NZ Defence Force has spent millions ofdollars with Palantir (Daily Post 9/7/20).At this point itsnot exactly clear how much of Palantir Thiel owns but partof the reason he may overtake Hart as the richest personhere is that there is talk of listing the company on thestock exchange.

Thiel was also an earlyfinancial backer of Clearview AI. This is a company involvedin facial recognition technology. It can match faces tobillions of images scraped from the internet. Clearview AIhas been controversial since its inception due to its linksto neo-Nazis, data leaks, lawsuits, questions about itsaccuracy, bans and strong opposition from variousorganisations. The American Civil Liberties Union forexample labelled its technology a dangerous and untestedsurveillance product. Interest locally comes from thefact that the police here contacted the company andconducted an unauthorised trial of the technology earlierthis year (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416483/police-trialled-facial-recognition-tech-without-clearance).

Apartfrom his delightful business involvements, Thiel has alsotaken an active interest in the formal political arena. Hehas long been a supporter of the Republican Party in the USAand contributed financially to a range of conservative andright-wing activists and politicians from Ann Coulter, RonPaul, Ted Cruz and Trump. What he has done in this regard inAotearoa is not known.

So that's thesoon-to-be richest person here.

What doesThiels biography tell us about how things really are?Firstly, in 2020 you dont actually have to make tangible,useful stuff that exists in the real world like tables orbread, in order to be mega-rich. Secondly, despiterhetorical claims to be interested in social freedomand the economic free-market, business and governmentoften work together to control those who actually do producereal stuff, that is, the vast majority of us. Surveillancetechnology is only the latest in a long line of tools usedto keep us under the thumb of the rich and powerful.Thirdly, the behaviour of our rulers gives the lie to theirown myths. They want us to believe that being born or livinglong-term in a particular geographical space separates thosepeople from others elsewhere. Theres a nation called NewZealand, we are kiwis and they arent. Itsa useful way to divide and rule. Clearly however, if you canspend less than a fortnight in that place and magically beincluded among the nation on the basis of having lotsof money, it shows the whole thing to be the nonsense thatit is.

It could be argued that Thiel is justone guy, that not everyone among the ruling class likes himand that he has provided money that has helped providepeople with jobs. Well, obviously he is an individual andyes sometimes there is contestation and squabbling amongdiffering factions among our rulers. The undisputable truthis however, that if the economic and political system had afundamental problem with an individual like him, hewouldnt be in the position he is in. As for the money hehas, this has come from the collective efforts of otherpeople, since no single person could literally do everythinghim/herself. The jobs this money has in turn created areeither not really conducive to social freedom or in the fewcases that they are, could be arrived at without theintervention of a billionaire autocrat.

Weread about the amazing feats of the rich and powerful andare encouraged to accept them. Their existence is seen asnatural and beneficial. Thiels story shows we dontneed to buy into this and shouldnt, whether you likechocolate fish ornot.

Scoop Media

Become a member Find out more

The rest is here:

Chocolate Fish, Red Herrings And Billionaires | Scoop News - Scoop.co.nz