After Luigi Mangione (allegedly) killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, I wondered what Cory Doctorow thought of it, and whether he would write something about it. That's because he published a story called "Radicalized" several years ago, which was essentially about the concept of pissed off men whose family members had cancer, killing insurance company executives.
Today, I found out that Doctorow posted those thoughts more than a week ago.
A couple of quotes:
I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you. This is the entire pitch of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: that wealth concentration leads to corruption, which is destabilizing, and in the long run it's cheaper to run a fair society than it is to pay for the guards you'll need to keep the guillotines off your lawn.
But we've spent the past 40 years running in the other direction, maximizing monopolies, inequality and corruption, and gaslighting the public when they insist that this is monstrous and unfair.
And:
Murder is never the answer. Murder is not a healthy response to corruption. But it is healthy for people to fear that if they kill people for greed, they will be unsafe.
You can read his short story "Radicalized" here.
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