The Plastic King first used money to build influence. Then he used money and influence to help a political party win. Now, at last, the harvest season has arrived.
After years of planting donations, favors, public relations campaigns, and carefully crafted friendships, it was finally time to collect the fruits of his labor. Some people invest in stocks. The Plastic King invests in politicians.
Friends in High Places
The Plastic King did not help this political party win out of love for democracy or concern for the citizens of Mickey Mouse Land.
He supported them because they agreed with his agenda and were willing to help him achieve it. As luck would have it, his agenda was remarkably simple: acquire more power, make more money, and remove as many obstacles as possible along the way.
Of course, achieving such ambitious goals alone would be inefficient. Why be a single billionaire influencing the government when you can gather a whole club of billionaires and influence it together?
After all, there is strength in numbers—especially when those numbers have many zeros attached to them.
The Billionaires’ Club
The Plastic King helped create a community of wealthy individuals who shared the same vision for the future. Conveniently, that vision always seemed to involve increasing their wealth while presenting it as a public service.
Together, they could approach the government not as individuals but as a powerful collective. A group capable of influencing markets, shaping economic policies, and reminding politicians that economic stability is a very fragile thing that would be a shame to disturb.
Negotiations become much easier when the other side believes that upsetting you might upset the entire economy.
What a fortunate coincidence.
Deciding Who Gets to Succeed
But influence over government was only part of the prize.
A powerful network can do much more than negotiate favorable policies. It can influence entire industries, reduce competition, and decide who receives opportunities and who mysteriously finds every door closed.
It can help create monopolies while publicly praising the virtues of free markets. It can decide who is allowed to become wealthy in Mickey Mouse Land and who should be quietly pushed aside before they become inconvenient.
Nothing personal, of course. It is simply good business.
If an ambitious newcomer threatens the interests of the club, they may suddenly discover that success is much harder when investors disappear, opportunities vanish, and criticism arrives from every direction at once.
Pure coincidence, naturally.
The Plastic King did not invent this system. He merely learned how to operate within a framework that had been refined over decades by powerful interests. A framework that appears in different forms wherever concentrated wealth and political influence become close friends.
The names may change. The faces may change. The slogans certainly change.
The game, however, remains remarkably familiar.
