Debt frees the powerful and crushes the powerless

[Celerity]

Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and their peers on the court understand the ethic of the powerful, writes Noah Berlatsky.

https://www.editorialboard.com/debt-frees-the-powerful-and-crushes-the-powerless/

Kavanaugh and Thomas join hands to crush poor Black students

Before being appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 2018, Kavanaugh racked up $60,000 to $200,000 in debt, supposedly on baseball tickets for himself and colleagues. Kavanaugh, as a federal judge, does not make enough money to pay down debts like that. But by the time of his nomination, the debts were gone. So how did he do it? Liberals and leftists suggested the debt payoff is a sign of corruption; Kavanaugh, they insinuate, is in the pocket of corporate and far-right interests. Kavanaugh certainly is a lickspittle for corporate and far-right interests, but not because they’ve paid him off. Kavanaugh’s debts were retired entirely legitimately, through the useful mechanism of white generational wealth. Conspiracy theories about Kavanaugh’s debts distract from the actual mechanisms of white capitalist power and help to erase the hypocrisy and cruelty of the Supreme Court’s defense of hierarchy at the expense of the poor, students and Black people.

Generational wealth for Kavanaugh, but not for Thomas

Kavanaugh’s been somewhat secretive about his finances, probably because he finds his luxury expenses and the way he is able to afford them somewhat embarrassing. “Embarrassing,” though, is not the same as illegal. Mother Jones, after an extensive investigation, concluded that “while he was maddeningly obtuse in admitting it, Kavanaugh seems to have gotten lots of money from his parents.” Kavanaugh has mostly worked in the public sector and his take-home pay has generally been modest. But his family is wealthy; his father, also a lawyer, was a muckety-muck with the US Chamber of Commerce and served as president of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association for 20 years. That means Kavanaugh can live well beyond his means and afford large debts in the sure knowledge that his family can pay them off. He isn’t corrupt, in the usual sense. He’s just rich.



The difference here with Clarence Thomas is instructive. Thomas was born in Jim Crow Georgia to an impoverished family; the shack where he grew up was insulated with newspapers and his family shared an outhouse with neighbors. (Kavanaugh’s family, needless to say, did not share an outhouse with neighbors.) Thomas’ family has less money than Kavanaugh’s for straightforward reasons. Black people were targeted for systematic theft and dispossession in the south and countrywide. They could not build up cash reserves or resources. That’s why there’s a $240,120 discrepancy today in wealth between the median white household and the median Black household.

Thomas, like Kavanaugh, is an extremely ambitious man, who wants the political power that comes with a government position, but also wants to live like a private-sector elite. Kavanaugh could do this easily with a boost from his white wealthy family. Thomas, however, struggled. In 2000, he complained to influential Republicans that his salary of $173,600 a year was so low that he might quit the court. Thomas’ efforts to legislate salary increases didn’t work. But there was a workaround. Republican donors began lavishing Thomas and his wife with gifts in order to ensure that he wouldn’t leave the bench. Billionaire Harlan Crow provided Thomas with yacht vacations and private school tuition for Thomas’ nephew. He also renovated the property where Thomas’ mother lives. Donors also appear to have helped Thomas pay down extensive debts contracted through purchases of a home and of a private RV.

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[bedazzled]

1. That is a terrific article

And a useful website. Thanks!