Elon Musk’s manipulation of Dogecoin was no lighthearted prank. It was a deliberate exercise in extracting wealth from unsuspecting investors, echoing the same inhumane forces that ignited communism as a desperate reaction to unchecked capitalism.
Musk’s constant prodding of cryptocurrency markets, under the guise of innovation and fun, mirrors how 19th-century industrial magnates systematically exploited workers and funneled unimaginable riches into the hands of a privileged few.
The danger is clear and immediate: If history is any guide, these acts of economic cruelty will inevitably trigger a violent backlash that topples the very structures protecting the wealthy elite.
The story of communism’s rise is not a tale of fanatics spontaneously deciding to overthrow governments. It is a narrative rooted in necessity, birthed by industrial barons whose hoarding of wealth left countless families in poverty and despair.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were not calling for tyranny. They warned that if capitalism refused to evolve, the masses would take matters into their own hands. Their words were a diagnosis of a terminal illness in an economic system that forced men, women, and children to labor under savage conditions for starvation wages.
Today, the same pattern is unfolding in new digital battlegrounds. Musk’s promotion of Dogecoin, followed by sudden selloffs, demonstrates the same fundamental assault on financial stability that characterized brutal industrial empires.
It was not a superficial game played by a whimsical tech celebrity. It was a cold, methodical operation that replicated the boom-and-bust cycles staged by old-money capitalists. The profiteers then walked away wealthier, leaving ordinary people to bear the losses. The old robber barons launched panics on Wall Street. Musk and his allies do it through tweets and carefully timed proclamations.
The cruelty is identical, and so is the outcome. In earlier eras, hapless factory workers found themselves trapped in cycles of low pay and ceaseless production quotas. Now, small-time investors who dream of a financial breakthrough end up with worthless digital assets. Musk’s defenders glorify him as a visionary, an eccentric genius. They celebrate his ability to move markets with a few keystrokes. They dismiss critics as too cynical to grasp the future.
But this defense is the same misguided adulation once bestowed on magnates who built grotesque fortunes on child labor and suppressed union organizing through intimidation. This ideology claims that the powerful few must be worshipped because they chart a course for progress, even when they carve up the wealth of entire generations for personal gain.
Musk is not alone in this assault on economic fairness. He simply embodies a new wave of digital oligarchs who have replaced assembly lines with cryptocurrency exchanges and gig economy apps.
The underlying contempt for workers and ordinary investors remains. In the 19th century, factory operators pretended they offered a path to prosperity, all while paying poverty-level wages and crushing any move toward collective bargaining.
In the 21st century, tech elites peddle illusions of democratized finance and open access to wealth creation. Yet every hype cycle ends with the big players cashing out before everyone else. The empty promises of the industrial age have evolved into the false hopes of the crypto boom, but the fundamental deception remains.
Marx and Engels wrote of a capitalist structure so vicious that it sowed the seeds of its own destruction. They argued that the cycle of exploitation would become intolerable, leaving the underclass no choice but revolution.
The last century offers countless examples of nations that embraced communism not because citizens craved tyranny, but because their desperation reached critical mass. Observers often forget that these revolutions targeted an entrenched oligarchy whose greed rendered ordinary reforms impossible. Capitalism’s defenders refused to share power or wealth, and entire societies embraced an alternative that promised protection from predatory elites.
It is crucial to remember that these communist revolutions ultimately produced new tyrannies. Power-hungry officials rose to the top, mimicking the same selfishness that once flourished under capitalism. The tragedy of communism was not simply that it emerged, but that it repeated the brutality it originally opposed.
The police states of the Soviet Union and Maoist China clamped down on dissent, replaced economic exploitation with political terror, and perpetuated a cycle of repression that rivaled the horrors of the capitalist societies they once denounced. The lesson is grim but unambiguous: A refusal to reform an unjust system paves the way for revolution, which in turn can yield another form of oppression.
It could be assumed that the collapse of the Soviet Union discredited any resurrection of communist ideals. That assumption is dangerously naïve. Revolutionary fervor has always hinged on the scale of human suffering and the arrogance of elites who dismiss legitimate grievances.
Marxism may not return in its 20th-century form, but the underlying forces that gave it life – economic despair, institutional corruption and a sense that the powerful treat human lives as expendable — remain potent. If our modern titans of technology persist in rigging markets, mocking those who lose everything, and cementing a caste system based on digital illusions, then history will repeat itself with devastating precision.
Musk’s exploitation of the Federal government and stock market captures the essential cruelty that drives people to extreme ideologies. He orchestrates a carnival of false hope, promising life-changing fortunes to those who gamble on his every social media statement. Some rush in, convinced they are on the brink of unimaginable prosperity. Then the crash occurs, leaving thousands of investors stranded with worthless assets. Musk moves on, reveling in the spotlight and counting his profit.
This is no different from the booms and panics staged by bankers in the late 19th century, except that technology has accelerated the timeline. Then as now, the wealthy puppetmasters exit unscathed, and the powerless are left to pick through the rubble.
Nothing in the historical record suggests that such behavior ends quietly. People do not willingly accept endless exploitation. When a tipping point is reached, they look for an alternative that promises relief, even if it carries authoritarian risks.
That was the gamble many Russians took in 1917, the gamble Chinese peasants took in the late 1940s, and the gamble countless populations have taken when all other routes to justice were closed off. The cycle is cyclical for one reason only: The owners of capital believe they are invincible and do not care about the inevitable backlash.
Musk and his kind could forestall this outcome by investing in systemic reforms, championing true financial transparency, or restraining their self-serving impulses. But if history has taught us anything, it is that those who possess extreme wealth rarely volunteer to share it.
Just as industrial tycoons refused to establish fair wages or humane working conditions until they were forced by strikes and riots, modern billionaires show no interest in relinquishing the advantage that allows them to manipulate markets at will.
They prefer to believe they will remain untouchable, shielded by their fortunes, worshipped by fans who label them visionaries, and protected by toothless regulators who have neither the power nor the inclination to impose accountability.
All the while, ordinary workers, small investors, and families trying to secure a piece of the so-called American dream lose money, security, and trust in the system. When faith in peaceful reform evaporates, the door opens to radical solutions.
The cyclical nature of capitalism’s breakdown is not a relic of the past. It is an ever-present threat, revitalized every time another predatory scheme shatters people’s livelihoods. Dogecoin is just one example. Financial markets bristle with similar manipulations in stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies, each one fueling deeper resentment and despair.
Should this anger find coherent leadership, another wave of revolutionary fervor could erupt, reinventing the communist impulse or birthing a new dogma that promises salvation from corporate tyranny. The end result could easily be worse than the problem it seeks to solve.
What arises in the wake of capitalist excess often proves just as oppressive, if not more so. That is the tragedy the world witnessed in the regimes of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao: a well-intentioned revolt against cruelty that degenerated into nightmarish political repression.
If Musk and his fellow corporate barons refuse to recognize these unchanging historical patterns, they will walk humanity straight into another disastrous repetition. Market manipulation, mockery of the vulnerable, and brazen profiteering have consequences.
The pageantry of their wealth might blind them to the tinderbox they are creating, but it will not spare them from the fallout. A system that systematically robs the many for the lavish benefit of the few is destined to provoke a counterforce.
The time for illusions is long past. Musk’s manipulations are a symptom of the same disease that created communism in the first place. If no corrective measures are taken, if billionaires continue to treat the financial futures of millions as a source of frivolous entertainment, then the pushback will come.
Capitalism’s defenders often cite communism’s failure as a reason to reject all criticism of market exploitation, but they overlook the obvious fact that such revolutions only gained traction because the cruelty of the status quo was intolerable. Refusal to reform, and the pattern will repeat, it is only a matter of time.
The ghosts of 1848, 1917, and 1949 will rise again, emboldened by the exact same injustices that fueled them the first time around. The question is not whether such injustices breed revolution, but when.
© Photo
Andrew Harnik and Phortio (via Shutterstock)
