There was this crackpot writer named William S. Burroughs who was not only a trust fund baby (yes, that Burroughs* family) but a junkie as well. He could occasionally turn a phrase. He coined “the algebra of need” when discussing his heroin addiction. Elaborating, Burroughs says:

Well, by the “algebra of need” I simply meant that, given certain known factors in an equation and the equation comprising a situation of absolute need — any form of need — you can predict the results. Leave a sick junkie in the back room of a drugstore and only one result is possible. The same is true of anyone in a state of absolute hunger, absolute fear, etc. The more absolute the need, the more predictable the behavior becomes until it is mathematically certain.

Our country is currently in the grip of something absolute. And that is the absolutism of our TechBro Overlords.

Assholes like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the billionaire class are diseased men. They are possessed by the Algebra of Greed. They have more money than they could ever spend or disperse, they have the power and influence that comes with that money, they have fame, notoriety, and celebrity status, they have absurd vanity projects like rocket ships, and, most importantly, they get to sit at the Right Hand of Their King. They are the Princes of MAGAt-land.

But it’s not enough.

They want more. They want to be admired. Respected. Loved. I know, it makes one retch.

(But if they can’t have love or admiration they’ll settle for fear.)

It’s the Algebra of Greed. More plus more equals even more. More times more, more raised to the power of more, More for the Sake of More.

We’ll dress these characters up with gushing stories about their brilliance, their entrepreneurial vision, their technological savvy, and their boldness and risk-taking.

We’ll leave out their law-breaking, moral vacuousness, and monumental vanity.

The truth is these guys are sociopaths. They aren’t our heroes and certainly should not be our leaders. How in the world can a free, democratic nation turn over its government’s management and accountability to un-elected private operators? Why do Elon and his minions get to look at our personal data and then decide who or what gets axed? This is nothing short of a coup.

The dumbshit in the White House has turned the country over to pirates. He’s letting them loot the treasury and tear up, disrupt, and destroy anything that they don’t like. And they don’t like much. And they certainly don’t like you. They don’t want the government to help you. They want you to be entirely dependent on them.

They want to turn the USA into a company store. I mean the kind of company store that Merle Travis immortalized in his song “Sixteen Tons“:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

It’s not easy for ordinary citizens to get out from under the grip of the Greed Brigade. And it is nearly impossible to do it as consumers. And being a consumer is more important than being a citizen—at least as far as these guys are concerned.

The best thing we can probably do is stop buying their shit. As much as we can, anyway. And stop buying into their “vision” of the future. It’s great for them and crap for us.

My next post will be more positive, I swear! I shall wrap up my EUMENTICS™ lessons.

*Burroughs Corp. merged with Sperry to form UNISYS in 1986