Transformative Change Doesn’t Come From Elites Tinkering With Systems That Serve Their Own Interests

Ultimately DOGE Will Utterly Fail

As we saw earlier, despite spending billions of dollars to make himself popular and admired, 52% of the public have an unfavorable opinion of Musk while just 36%— primarily partisan Republicans— have a favorable opinion. Too bad they didn’tt have opinion polls just before the French and Russian Revolutions. I wonder if people would have seen France’s and Russia’s finance ministers, Jacques Necker and Sergei Witte, the way they see Musk today.

One thing we do know, though, is that throughout history, periods of revolutionary upheaval have often been marked by the rise of key figures whose influence reflects the tensions and contradictions of their age. Necker and Witte, both played pivotal roles in their nations’ crises. Today, as the U.S. and the world grapples with technological disruption, environmental collapse and massive and growing economic inequality, Musk represents that kind of  polarization that they once did. Though Musk is neither a statesman nor a public servant, his influence on technology, labor and global markets invites obvious comparisons to Necker and Witte, both of whom sought to manage deep structural challenges while ultimately catalyzing revolutionary discontent.

Necker served as Louis XVI’s finance minister in the volatile years leading up to the French Revolution. A very wealthy reformer at heart, he sought to modernize France’s finances without alienating the deeply entrenched aristocratic interests that dominated the Ancien Régime. His advocacy for greater transparency— exemplified by the publication of the Compte rendu au roi, a public accounting of royal finances— was revolutionary in its time. However, this move backfired, as it revealed the monarchy’s precarious financial state while inflaming calls for broader political reform.

Necker’s failure to reconcile the competing demands of the French elites and an increasingly restless populace underscores his role as a transitional figure. He became a target of criticism for his inability to address systemic inequality. His efforts to maintain royal power through modest reform, rather than fundamental change, ultimately emboldened revolutionary forces.

Witte, finance minister and later prime minister of Tsarist Russia, occupied a similarly fraught position during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He championed industrialization as a means of strengthening the Russian Empire, overseeing ambitious projects like the Trans-Siberian Railway and securing foreign loans to modernize the economy. However, his policies exacerbated social and economic tensions, with the rapid industrialization displacing traditional agrarian communities and widening the gap between the wealthy elite and the impoverished masses.

Witte also played a key role in drafting the October Manifesto of 1905, which introduced limited constitutional reforms in the wake of the Bloody Sunday massacre and the Revolution of 1905. Like Necker, Witte sought to stabilize a crumbling regime by offering modest reforms instead of a needed revolutionary overhaul; his efforts only delayed the inevitable collapse of the autocracy. His legacy, like Necker’s, is one of contradiction: a reformer who simultaneously accelerated the conditions for revolution.

Musk, as a private-sector billionaire dabbling in politics, occupies a somewhat different role than Necker or Witte, though his influence invites comparisons. Like Necker and Witte, Musk is a figure of profound ambivalence, heralded as both a visionary innovator and a symbol of inequality and exploitation. For many people, Tesla and SpaceX reflect a belief in technological solutions to global problems, much like Witte’s faith in industrialization as a tool for national progress.

Yet Musk’s leadership style and business practices have attracted widespread criticism. His aggressive opposition to unions and alleged mistreatment of workers mirror the exploitative labor conditions of Witte’s industrialization efforts. Similarly, Musk’s massive personal wealth—amassed during a time of increasing economic inequality—draws parallels to the privileged aristocrats whose resistance to change hampered Necker’s reforms. Musk’s public persona, with its erratic behavior and provocative statements on social media, further fuels polarization, making him both a cult-like figure for some and a scapegoat for systemic problems for others.

What unites Necker, Witte and Musk is their role as transitional figures in times of profound societal change. Each sought to navigate the contradictions of their era: Necker attempted to modernize France’s finances without dismantling aristocratic privilege; Witte pursued industrial progress while maintaining autocratic rule; Musk advances technological utopianism amid growing discontent with the capitalism he symbolizes and revels in. All three figures reveal the limitations of reform in the face of structural crises. Necker’s financial transparency exposed the monarchy’s fragility, Witte’s modernization deepened Russia’s social divides, and Musk’s technological advancements fail to address the systemic inequalities his wealth epitomizes. Their stories suggest that piecemeal reforms, however well-intentioned, are insufficient to address the deeper contradictions of their times.

The parallels between the 3 of them ultimately underscore the futility of half-measures in addressing systemic inequality under exploitative regimes. Necker’s transparency efforts may have exposed the rot within France’s monarchy, but they were never designed to empower the starving masses; they were a desperate bid to salvage an aristocracy entrenched in privilege. Similarly, Witte’s industrialization was not a path to worker liberation but a state-sponsored effort to strengthen Tsarist autocracy at the expense of Russia’s peasantry and urban proletariat. Musk’s projects, though hailed by some as revolutionary, are better understood as capitalist ventures that deepen the global inequalities they purport to address. His wealth— derived from taxpayer subsidies, exploitation of labor, and monopolistic practices— stands as a monument to the failures of neoliberalism to confront the crises of climate change, economic injustice, and technological precarity. Far from being revolutionary figures, Necker, Witte and Musk are functionaries of systems designed to perpetuate inequality. Their reforms, while appearing bold to some, served to forestall revolutionary change rather than foster it, shoring up the very institutions that oppress the majority. Musk’s role today, like Necker’s and Witte’s before him, is not to dismantle the structures of exploitation but to repackage them as progress. The lesson history offers is clear: transformative change does not come from billionaires or aristocrats tinkering with systems that serve their own interests. It comes from the collective struggle of the oppressed, demanding not modest reform, but revolution.