Reviewed by Ian Hamilton
The central premise of this book is clear and cogently defended (often in great detail). Jacob Silverman wishes to expose what he sees as unscrupulous behaviour by a group of mega rich men who seek to use their enormous wealth to buy political influence and loyalty. He portrays this as an affront to the rights of ordinary citizens within the American democratic system. If his findings are considered trustworthy (often a contested issue in texts that deal with socio-political matters), then the picture is grim.
Generally, he gives his conclusions credence by evidence of extensive research and claims that can be tested by referring to public records. He does expose his bias at times. He clearly sees these hyper-capitalist free marketeers as motivated by a toxic combination of greed and obsession with the power their wealth can buy. He basically sees them as indefensible and invites us to come to the same conclusion. Late in the book he cites the example of Sam Bankman-Fried (sounds more like a tabloid headline than a name), whose illegal activities lead to a forty-five-year jail sentence, as proof that when subjected to honest investigation many of the Techno billionaires would be found to have flouted the law.
The book would serve well as a reference text, perhaps better than as a cover-to-cover read. Fortunately, it has an index. (Index entries include Elon Musk, Peter Theil, JD Vance, David Sacks, Vivek Ramaswary, Joe Lonsdale and others from the political donor class). Silverman deals with the behaviours (and implied motivations) of the “who’s who” of Silicon Valley billionaires. That is one of the ways in which it is an American story. Generalisations can be problematic, but America is usually identified as a nation which is built on the Enlightenment emphasis on the rights of the individual. It is also seen as a champion of the capitalist, market driven, model of economy. It is the heady mix of these two things that are “front of mind” in this text. The US is also a distinctive form of democracy. It gives considerable power to its President; it has no equivalent of Australia’s single, national Electoral Commission; election campaigns cost enormous amounts of money, and the cabinet formed by the President is not necessarily comprised of elected members of Congress or the Senate.
In The Forever War (2020) Nick Bryant describes the US as a bellicose nation, and perhaps that observation is relevant to the discord described by Silverman. Additionally, American forms of Christian belief and practice often have a Calvinist tone, especially with regard to the “gospel of prosperity”: wealth demonstrates God’s love; great wealth demonstrates God’s great love!
This is not to assert that the oligarchies which are the subject of this text are only operating in the USA, nor only operating at this point of history (consider the workings of the Dutch East India Company, as an example).
The text is quite a dense web of observations and evidence. Even so, the range of the topics may be summarised. Firstly, he deals with the role of social media (and the Tech fortunes which resulted from its invention); secondly, with the threat(?) posed by AI and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence); thirdly, with the way global venture capitalists have sought to use great wealth to acquire power – he gives detailed attention to Saudi Arabian money; fourthly, the interconnection of politics, billionaires and security/military/energy contracts; fifthly, the role of “lawfare” (extremely long and expensive court battles) and Non-Disclosure Agreements; sixthly, the deceptive use of charity status to veil political aims; seventhly, the complicit nature of tax havens in producing a mega-rich elite; and eighthly, the role of crypto-currencies in the deals done by mega-rich individuals.
While the tone of the book is blatantly critical of Trump, Silverman also offers a critique of the Democrats (in the context of the morally dubious decisions which led to the collapse of a company called FTX):
“… it demonstrates how the corruption wrought by the convergence of tech money and Crypto politics has been bipartisan” (p200).
This an alarming book in many ways but there is one glimmer of hope perhaps. This exhaustive piece of investigative journalism has found a publisher honourable enough to publish it.
Gilded Rage
[2025]
by Jacob Silverman
Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978 139942 000 6
$34.99; 336pp