The Passion Of The Rupert

A typical News Corps son of a bitch.

I have not posted on the Rupert Murdoch/News Corps hacking scandal, because it felt like one of those stories that was moving so fast anything you said on Tuesday would be irrelevant on Wednesday.

Plus, my own bias leads me to view this as a "dog bites man" story.  Rupert Murdoch is a bully, a thug and a criminal?  Say it ain't so!

Today I read this summary of events.  So now I feel a little more plugged in.

Here's my takeaway for what it's worth.  

They are guilty.  Due process and presumption of innocence notwithstanding, their behavior and the trail of evidence is overwhelming.  The mass resignations, the stream of new allegations and the fact that normally cowed or co-opted watchdogs are now snarling all tell me that this is not only 100% true, but there's a lot more unsettling stuff out there.

The broader question of what this all means seems to be this: Rupert Murdoch is the Cornelius Vanderbilt of the New Gilded Age.

Vanderbilt cagily started as a shipping magnate and then moved into railroads.  Murdoch started with tabloids and then moved into cable television.  Vanderbilt was a renowned SOB.  Murdoch is certainly coming into the light as the same.  Vanderbilt once said, "What do I care about the law?  Ain't I got the power?" and "You have undertaken to cheat me.  I won't sue you, for the law is too slow.  I'll ruin you." Once, Vanderbilt cut off all rail and ferry traffic to New York City to force a concession.  

Vanderbilt is - along with his hated nemeses Gould and Fisk - the archetypical "robber baron" of the First Gilded Age.  He saw his opportunity, took it and then made sure that no one could challenge him.  He died one of the wealthiest men in the world and one of the most influential in the United States.

Few people better represent the "capitalism: red in tooth and claw" better than Vanderbilt.

Murdoch is an archetype of the Second Gilded Age.  This Gilded Age is not about railroads and steel, but rather it revolves around the control and distribution of information.  In this, Murdoch excelled.  He has become "content provider" for large swathes of the English speaking world.  In addition to Fox News and the myriad newspapers that he owns, Murdoch owns part of DirectTV, Dow Jones and Fox Broadcasting Company, which runs FOX, FoxSports, F/X (one of my favorite channels) and a bunch of other "little" cable niche networks.

But what really ties Murdoch to Vanderbilt in my mind is their contempt for the idea that the law applies to the rich.

The law is a slow, ponderous thing that seeks to create a legal equality among all.  Theoretically, when you stand before the bar, you are equal to the Murdochs and Vanderbilts of the world.  While I think we know that this is not technically true, the law can still level the mighty on occasion.  Therefore, the super-wealthy just go around it.

They hide their income from taxes.

They hire lobbyists to insert loopholes into laws.

They hire lawyers to exploit those loopholes.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "The rich are different than you and me" he meant that they were almost like a different species.  But today it seems more that the Rich are their own nation.  They exist apart from "America" or "Australia" or "Britain".  They make their own rules, their own laws and their own way in the world.

Like the original Gilded Age, this eventually provoked a backlash - first from the Populist farmers, then from the Middle Class Progressives.  It remains to be seen whether the modern American is too numbed, too ignorant and too indifferent to be rallied to another great movement of reform.  

But a hundred years ago, Americans broadly realized that these "Malefactors of great wealth" - as Teddy Roosevelt called them - were a threat to democracy.  They understood that they existed outside Jefferson's America.

Today, it is apparent that those days have returned.  

Murdoch is just the latest example of this.