More On The Alliance Between The Ultra-Wealthy And Marx's Lumpenproletariat

I can't ask for a better illustration of my thesis on the problem that's beset US inner cities since the 1960s than Trump's latest chioice of opponents:

President Donald Trump on Saturday took aim at Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) on Truth Social, citing Chicago’s violent crime numbers and vowing that federal support could be on the way.

“Six people were killed, and 24 people were shot, in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME. He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming! MAGA. President DJT,” Trump wrote.

I asked the web, "What is the Pritzker family's net worth?" and "AI" replied,

The total net worth of the Pritzker family is not a single reported figure, but rather a collection of individual fortunes held by numerous family members, with individual net worths often in the billions. For example, in May 2025, Governor JB Pritzker had an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion, while his sister Penny Pritzker had an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion. The Pritzker fortune is a vast inheritance from the family's founder and the Hyatt Hotels empire.

Ferdinand Lundberg (1902-1995) is so far the most prominent theoretician of concentrated family wealth in US society, but his 1968 The Rich and the Super-Rich doesn't mention the Pritzkers at all. The best-known Pritzker enterprise, Hyatt Hotels, got its start in the late 1950s and grew with the expansion of air travel in the following decade. Thus the Pritzkers had only begun their rise to visibility by the time Lundberg wrote his best-known book.

Accordimg to Wikipedia,

The Pritzker family is an American family engaged in various business enterprises and philanthropy, and one of the wealthiest families in the United States (staying in the top 10 of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began such listings in 1982). Its fortune started in the 20th century, particularly through the expansion of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation by Jay Pritzker.

In 1995, Jay Pritzker stepped down and Thomas Pritzker took control of The Pritzker Organization. When Jay died in 1999, the family split the business into 11 pieces worth $1.4 billion each (choosing to settle a lawsuit from two family members, who apparently received $500 million each in 2005). By 2011, the dissolution had been completed and the cousins had gone their separate ways, with some pursuing business and others philanthropic or artistic ventures.

The father of both Illinois Gov JB Pritzker and his sister Penny, who is effectively chairman of the Harvard board, is Donald Pritzker (1932–1972), who was co-founder of Hyatt and one of Jay Pritzker's children. Whatever their nominal business and philanthropic titles, they are effectively third-generation rentiers of the Pritzker fortune, among their many siblings and cousins.

While the family is too recent to have figured in Lundberg's overall picture of US wealth, it clearly functions in a role very similar to the role the Rockefellers played in the mid-20th century, with John D Sr's grandsons John D III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David serving as three state governors, running Chase Bank, and involved in numerous Ivy League and other charitable endowments.

But the Rockefellers themselves were apparently too busy to concern themselves with the problems in the cities, which arose in the 1960s. Tom Wolfe mentions the Roockefellers only four times in Radical Chic, but only to characterize them as "old money" or "old Society", not the sort of people who'd hobnob with Black Panthers. It's a different set who'd build the alliance with Marx's Lumpenproletariat:

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, particularly in the context of the revolutions of 1848. They dismissed the revolutionary potential of the Lumpenproletariat and contrasted it with the proletariat. Among other groups, criminals, vagabonds, and prostitutes are usually included in this category.

If Marx and Engels had the insight to recognize criminals, vagabonds, and prostitutes as a separate class, distinguished in interests from the proletariat, we see a very similar set of class interests in the US inner cities today, street thugs, homeless, illegals, drug traffickers, addicts, pimps, and prostitutes. They tend to control public spaces in ever-expanding areas surrounding the inner cities, but the legitimate residents in the same areas tend to be either their direct victims, or the quality of their daily lives is severly diminished by their presence. These solid citizens are part of the current proletariat.

In the context of the Pritzkers and conditions in (but not limited, even in Illinois, to Chicago), their ally Mayor Brandon Johnson seems oblivious to this distinction:

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Briefing,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stated that the Trump administration is focusing on Chicago for immigration enforcement and crime “because there’s clearly a disdain for working people.” And the actions aren’t about crime, but the Trump administration is “working to, not only divide communities, but conquer them.”

What Johnson seems dimly to perceive is that in Washington, DC, the working class has suddenly recognized that a crackdown on street crime, homelessness, and illegals is in their interests -- which he sees as divisive. Polls both nationally and within the District show increasing popularity for Trump's approach:

"Fifty-four percent approve of the president’s approach, using the National Guard in D.C.," [pollster Mark] Penn explained. "That's interesting. Any time I apply the word 'Trump,' it’s very hard to get above 50%. If I take his name off the policies, I get 60, 70, 75, even 80% support—for example, locking up criminals who are here illegally. But when you put his name, the country is so polarized that Democrats won’t concede a single inch."

"So when he gets 54% approving, I think, wow, that’s like a normal 65%. That means there are people who approve of it, but won't say they do if you put the name Trump in the questionnaire."

What this says is that Trump recognizes a basic issue, that the class interests of the Lumpenproletariat are separate from and opposed to the interests of the proletariat. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, new generations of the very wealthy have aligned themselvew with the interests of the Lumpenproletariat, leading to tolerance of street crime, drugs, and homelessnes in the inner cities, under the false pretense that they're looking out for the interests of the proletariat, which are completely separate.

Trump has been extraordinarily perceptive in choosing his opponents. DC Mayor Bowser has deftly managed to avoid being caught in Trump's crosshairs and has reluctantly acknowledged the success of Trump's crackdown. Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Johnson and Illinois Gov Pritzker are presenting a united front of opposition. The Pritzkers in particular are unattractive and out of touch, defending Harvard and street crime, just the sort of opponents Trump wants -- and his strategy is starting to look like a winner.