The Mafia Believed in a Leviathan. American Moguls Believe They Are Leviathan
A meditation on moral codes
It came to me in conversation with a friend — an Italian-American, appropriately enough. I said something mildly sacrilegious about Europe, something that made him bristle in that way only Italian men can bristle, as if you have insulted both his grandmother and the Catholic Church in a single breath.
But the truth is, the thought didn’t come from my friend at all. It came from listening to Peter Zeihan on Sam Harris’s podcast — that merry geopolitical pyromaniac — laying out the fractures of the world order like a man describing weather systems made of steel and bone. As he spoke, the polemic began writing itself in my mind. I was literally laughing under my breath. The ironies were too ripe.
The mafia — that ancient confederation of thieves and killers — has a stronger moral operating system than the American business aristocracy now presiding over our decline.
Yes. I said that.
And I mean it.
Because the Italian mafia — corrupt, violent, extortionary, wicked — nonetheless believed in something outside of itself. Something that constrained it. Something that judged it. Call it God, call it family, call it honor, call it the neighborhood, call it La Madonna herself — but it was something.
They feared consequences.
They feared priests.
They feared grandmothers.
They feared a sovereign beyond their reach.
But American moguls?
The lords of real estate, media, finance, and data?
They fear nothing.
Not God.
Not the public.
Not the press.
Not the law.
Not the institutions they silently hollow out while distributing memes about “innovation” and “freedom.”
The mafia believed in a Leviathan.
American moguls believe they are Leviathan.
And that difference is not abstract. It is civilizational.
Look at the new planetary stage:
The Americans: arms dealers with a Constitution on life-support.
The Chinese: hawkers of industrial miracles, selling structure to a world losing it.
The Russians: a wandering empire playing mercenary to its own former borders.
The Indians: playing all sides, cashing in on being indispensable to everyone.
The Middle East: becoming the Swiss bankers of the fractured world, laundering energy and stability like they’ve been doing it for centuries.
And Europe? Poor Europe.
Carrier of civilization’s pension plan.
Museum of former greatness.
Retirement home for the Enlightenment.
It was after Zeihan said something like this — in his charmingly sociopathic Boy Scout tone — that the idea detonated in my head. It detonated because it fit. Because it captured the sick joke of our age: that the very people who were supposed to guard the American experiment — its billionaires, its “builders,” its “disruptors,” its “visionaries” — have instead become a cartel more ethically deranged than the Sicilian underworld ever was.
And into this vacuum walks Peter Thiel’s court philosopher, Curtis Yarvin.
A man whose worldview is an amalgamation of Machiavelli, Gnostic lore, and whatever esoteric literature rich men read when they wish to justify power without judgment.
He sees the shape of the world as it is — the dying American empire, the fractured multipolar order, the rising paranoia. And he thinks: Ah. Finally. Fertile soil for neo-feudalism.
He believes the public is ready.
He misreads Americans entirely.
But he believes it.
He calculates — and this is the part that almost makes him charming — that if someone like Greta Thunberg were ever allowed to unite the world around moral purpose, around sacrifice, around shared duty, it would pose a civilizational threat not to the public, but to him. To people like him. To men whose dreams require no constraints beyond their own appetites.
Thus the fixation on sea-steading.
Thus the fever dream of corporate city-states.
Thus the fantasy of a world engineered around the whims of techno-lords.
He is a neo-Randian without Rand’s romantic innocence.
He is a Hobbesian who thinks he’s the exception to the Hobbesian world.
He is, in effect, a philosopher of optimization without consequence.
Which is simply another way of saying:
He is a philosopher for men who believe themselves gods.
Here’s the thing:
The mafia, for all its sin, had a code.
If a don ordered a hit, it was understood that he might someday receive one.
Reciprocity is a restraint.
Even among criminals.
But American moguls?
They do not believe consequences apply to them.
They don’t live in moral reality.
They live in legal arbitrage.
They don’t live in community.
They live in tax jurisdictions.
They don’t live in neighborhoods.
They live in compounds.
They don’t live in a republic.
They live in a marketplace they believe they can optimize into perfection.
A mafia boss knelt in church once in a while.
A mogul kneels only for quarterly earnings.
The mafia at least knew it was corrupt.
The mogul believes he is a civilizational gift.
And that makes him infinitely worse.
Because corruption without illusion is manageable.
But corruption in the belief of one’s sacred goodness?
That is where history gives us tyrants.
You see, a man who believes in a sovereign beyond himself — even a criminal — is constrained.
But a man who believes himself sovereign?
A man who believes the world is raw material for his ambitions?
A man who thinks optimization is morality?
That is a man without brakes.
A man without humility.
A man without fear.
Fear is not always bad.
Fear of consequence keeps civilizations alive.
Fear of judgment keeps power in check.
Fear of shame keeps egos aligned with community.
But the American mogul fears nothing — and therefore destroys everything.
He destroys union power.
He destroys the commons.
He destroys regulatory guardrails.
He destroys democratic norms.
He destroys the moral expectations of a shared society.
And he does it all with a smile, a hoodie, and a TED talk.
He is worse than a criminal.
He is a criminal who thinks he’s a philosopher-king.
So yes:
The mafia believed in a Leviathan.
American moguls believe they are Leviathan.
The first can be managed.
The second ends civilizations.
Because when men who believe themselves gods inherit a world with no constraints, no consequences, and no shame — their ambitions become constitutions, their appetites become law, and the rest of us become the debris of their desires.
If we don’t wake up to that — if we continue mistaking wealth for virtue and success for wisdom — we will find ourselves living in a world where the only real difference between a criminal syndicate and a multinational corporation is the branding.
The mafia feared consequences.
Our moguls purchase them.
And a civilization that cannot impose consequence on its kings
is a civilization that has already chosen its collapse.
If you want a coda, a Fury-line, a final flourish — here it is:
At least the mobster feared his mother.
The mogul fears only a bad Wi-Fi signal.
And that, in the end, may prove the greater crime.
I see you as a modern day prophet Mike. You may bristle at the traditional religious association, but I believe you can be a prophet without the religious connotation. You speak truth to power. You speak of the crises that you see in the future which are unfolding now. You go beyond religious boundaries. We are in such dire need of voices such as yours and there are few. I appreciate the clarity with which you speak. Thank you.
Yes. A human without shame is the most dangerous animal