Wealth and power in bourgeois society come from fraud or force concealed as earnings

Evidence

But if you will take note of the mode of proceeding of men, you will see that all those who come to great riches and great power have obtained them either by fraud or by force; and afterwards, to hide the ugliness of acquisition, they make it decent by applying the false title of earnings to things they have usurped by deceit or by violence. And those who, out of either little prudence or too much foolishness, shun these modes always suffocate in servitude or poverty. For faithful servants are always servants and good men are always poor. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 430

Categorization

• DEFINE: The quoted Machiavelli text is Horkheimer’s touchstone for a power-realist reading of history, which then becomes the seed of his critique of society.
• XREF: connects to: Bourgeoisie aestheticized crime to mask their own practiced illegalities — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 435; Wealth alone lets elite grifters operate as obvious frauds without consequence; Bourgeois civil society rests on the choice between deceit or failure (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Bourgeois civil society rests on the choice between deceit or failure #corroborates (0.85)
• The bourgeoisie reframes exploitation as public service to justify it #corroborates (0.84) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 736
• Bourgeoisie aestheticized crime to mask their own practiced illegalities #corroborates (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 435
• Wealth alone lets elite grifters operate as obvious frauds without consequence #expands (0.80)
• Modern anti-historical individualism means private appropriation of socially produced wealth #expands (0.78) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1287
• Capitalist wealth is built on the subjugation of weaker economies #expands (0.75) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 337