Chapter 695 - 325: Capital’s Panic
If this were just Leo’s wishful thinking, or merely baseless media rumors, the White House would have denied it long ago.
Especially during an election year, that old fox Stern would never tolerate such an absurd rumor spreading for more than an hour.
But now, a full eighteen hours had passed since the news broke.
The White House Press Secretary’s X account was completely silent.
The President’s schedule showed no public events.
This silence was too unnatural.
This unnatural silence could only mean one thing: the White House was actually considering it.
Or, to be more precise, the White House had been forced into a corner where it had no choice but to consider it.
Vance pressed the intercom button on his desk.
"Get the White House Office of Political Affairs on the line for me."
"Yes, sir."
Two minutes later, his assistant came in through the door, his face pale.
"Sir, I can’t get through. Their lines are either busy or go straight to voicemail. I also tried contacting a few staffers I know, and they all said ’no comment’."
’No comment.’
Those two words hit Vance’s chest like a sledgehammer.
In an election year, those two words meant that anything was possible.
Vance stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
He watched the endless stream of traffic on the street below.
Those black sedans cruising down K Street carried the nation’s most powerful lobbyists and their financial backers. Together, they had built the intricate power structure of Washington.
And now, that young man named Leo, bringing with him a savage energy from the Rust Belt, had stormed into this delicate garden and was trampling everything into ruin.
Vance felt fear.
This fear stemmed from his understanding of power.
In this country, people were accustomed to equating capital with power.
In the eyes of the public, capital selected politicians through Super PACs, co-opted officials through the revolving door, and controlled the nation through lobbying groups.
But this perception was only superficial.
At a more fundamental level, capital had to bow to power.
This might sound contrary to conventional capitalist wisdom, but the reason was quite simple.
Because power held the ultimate authority over violence and arbitration.
The essence of capital is a set of social relationships governing production.
A pharmaceutical giant could command tens of thousands of workers, but only because the state protected employment contracts and patent law.
The moment executive power declared a business to be an illegal operation or a public health hazard, capital’s authority over its workers would instantly evaporate.
Power is heavy.
It is firmly anchored in land, population, history, and law.
Capital, on the other hand, could be abstracted into numbers, a string of code in an offshore account.
It is rootless, free to drift across the globe. This fluidity gives capital the leverage to pressure governments.
But the physical assets of capital—the factories, servers, pharmaceutical plants, and power lines—are tangible.
They can’t run away.
The highest echelons of power in Washington crave stability. They have no interest in the minutiae of industry regulations.
Modern legislation is so complex that politicians can’t grasp the technical details of medicine or energy. As a result, the leadership tacitly allows lobbyists deployed by capital to draft thousand-page bills.
Power outsources the tedious work of rule-making to capital.
As long as capital didn’t cross the absolute red lines—threatening national security or inciting mass unrest—power was content to let capital slip self-serving provisions into the details of legislation. This was the price for the financial backing that major corporations provided to keep the country running.
The essence of lobbying was to balance competing interests. The money they spent bought them a seat at the table.
𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
The pharmaceutical industry ponies up five million, the energy sector three million.
By observing these bids, power could gauge the relative influence of each side. It would then find a balancing point that kept the wheels of society turning while allowing the politicians to claim a political victory.
Capitalists had to understand their place.
Lobbyists modified the bill, but capital never truly owned the law.
Capital was merely renting the law for a fixed term.
Capital simulated power by purchasing administrative licenses and permits.
They cloaked their greedy profit motives in the rhetoric of American innovation and national security.
This act of masquerading as the national will was, in itself, proof that capital bowed to power in search of protection.
If capital’s self-serving agenda went too far and triggered public outrage, true power would not hesitate to tear up the lease.
Thus, under normal circumstances, capital simulated the authority of power.
But in extreme circumstances, it had to surrender control to executive power.
Capital without the protection of the nation’s military would inevitably become prey for global predators.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies could reap profits across the globe only because they were backed by the might of the United States military and the State Department.
If they completely undermined the foundations of the country, they would lose the world’s only armed bodyguard.
This was the root of Vance’s fear.
He realized that if Leo truly received that level of official backing, if the Democratic Party, for the sake of the election, truly decided to sacrifice the pharmaceutical industry in exchange for votes...
Then Pfizer, Johnson, Merck... these giants would face utter ruin.
The government can change the rules.
It can define what is an illegal monopoly.
It can launch national security reviews.
It can render your patents worthless.
The operations of any major corporation depended on government approval. Without clearance from the FDA, protection from the Patent Office, or diplomatic support from the State Department, the pharmaceutical giants were nothing.
This was what Leo was doing right now.
He was controlling capital by manufacturing uncertainty.
Vance turned around and looked at his assistant.