The assassination of the CEO of United Health has galvanized social media with the majority of sentiment being approval, but this points to a larger issue.

Is not that the system is broken or isn’t working. It’s working just as planned. It’s critical to understand the practices of UnitedHealth and the wider health insurance industry as systemic and bound up with the larger dynamic of corporate rule and capitalism, in that UnitedHealth is a vital part of the system of for-profit-healthcare than we have in America. I think it matters whether we want to understand the health insurance industry and its evils as an exception rather than at the core of our fucked-up health care system – which, again, we might call the logic of financial capitalism or the corporate profit motive.

The public reaction to Luigi Mangione’s murder of  UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, clearly tapped Americans simmering rage at the for-profit-health model with its predatory health insurance gatekeeper. The media, business and government elites outraged at that public reaction – rather than at the corporate murderers perpetuating those mass deaths – just compound that anger with their refusal to recognize this broader context of corporate murder that Mangione’s act is embedded within. 

Why, we might go so far as to label murder-by-algorithm as “structural violence”.

Mangione’s attack on the “structural violence” is basic cause and effect. It also sets a dangerous precedent. Because one day someone flips out and kills a CEO, and others start talking about how wonderful CEO killing is.

Maybe they already are?

Perhaps making other people poor and miserable and killing their relatives might be a bad idea even for the sociopaths who rule us? Might it just be a good idea to care about people CEO’s don’t know, because one of them might get past his security one day?

It might just be that caring only about money and power while abandoning any sort of Noblesse Oblige is seriously short-sighted. Maybe looking out for other people is not just morally correct but also pragmatically so. Or you can bet on your bodyguards and the security of your gated communities, while praying that criminals don’t kidnap your kids or bomb their school.

Many think that a little fear among CEOs might restrain the worst excesses of corporate greed that drive the overreaching corporate murder and lawlessness.

Of course, the corporate media doesn’t see it this way. I fact it’s quite apparent by the coverage that they see their duty through a class lens. As we’ve created a second “Gilded Age” the corporate media has been cheerleading all of it. The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, as well as Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post editorial board, not only decried the widespread support for Mangione but launched furious rebuttals against legitimate criticism of the health insurance industry.

 The reason for the media fear is simple: They are terrified of the idea that the American public wake up and understand that the class war is real, and identify the billionaire-class as the real villains. The killing of the UnitedHealth CEO has brought into the national consciousness the abusive, toxic, predatory practices of our corporate, for-profit-healthcare. One issue that all Americans, right, left and center can agree on. That’s scaring the hell out of our billionaire corporate overlords.

No one wants to live in a country where people feel so helpless and so incapable of receiving justice from the government that they start killing people. Unfortunately, the ruling elite of the United States have created a system where the masses of people have no ability to petition grievances, and the captured nature of the state means that it serves corporations and billionaires rather than the we the people. Any principles the state does have are constantly shifting, and with the bi-partisan nature of governance there is no method of redress. The problem is that the long-term trends—inequality, concentration of wealth and power, and the resulting inability of the political system to reflect the interests of regular people—is destroying America.

 Despite Margaret Thatchers admonishment, there are societies and they work best when members care about people they’ll never meet. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in, with it’s “greed is good” and “there is no society” morality. Hedge funds buy companies, loads them down with debts, bankrupting them and destroying the lives of workers. “Banksters” blow up the economy with their insane greed, and get get bailed out. Then, not only do they avoid jail time but they still receive their bonuses based on fraud, while ordinary people lose jobs, homes and healthcare. Insurance companies and big-Pharma overprice their services, deny care and pay their CEO’s tens of millions of dollars. 

The only silver lining here is that nobody fucking believes that we have the “best health care system in the world.” No one fucking cares about the abstract value of “choice” or getting to “keep your doctor.” Everybody is tired of getting surprise-charged thousands for routine tests. Even doctors, nurses and healthcare providers are tired of spending valuable time on the phone fighting with insurers over their medical recommendations.

The fact that people across the political spectrum reacted with glee to the murder of a health insurance CEO is a big tell, and not in a good way. Crazy things happen when the majority of people get very angry and have no legitimate political outlets for their legitimate rage. It would be ridiculous to create a situation like the one we have in America and not expect that the population will become radicalized and ultimately become violent.

Unfortunately, as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the government continues to get more and more unaccountable and lawless, the elite are going to further militarize against the population. This means more cops, it means more censorship and crackdowns on dissident movements, it means more elite enclaves where the rulers are protected from the peasantry.

In fact, in the wake of the assassination, we’re already seeing exactly that. Not only is the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, charging Mangione with “terrorism” but New York Governor, Kathy Hochul, held a virtual meeting Tuesday with state law enforcement officials and about 175 corporate representatives to discuss sharing security resources.

Nice to see where government priorities are when it comes to CEO safety.

Contrast this with the sort of hand-waving response to school shootings. Maybe the CEO’s can have active shooter drills like grade schoolers?