What the Jeffrey Epstein files reveal about how elites trade toxic gifts and favours

Following horrifying revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic sexual assaults and trafficking of underage girls, the United States Department of Justice has been forced to publicly release millions of the late sex offender’s emails and texts.

I am an anthropologist of elites who conducted field work among the secretive community of nuclear weapons scientists. The Epstein files opens a window into the even more closely guarded world of capitalism’s 0.1 per cent.

Anthropologists study people through what renowned American anthropologist Clifford Geertz called “deep hanging out” — mingling informally and taking notes on what we see. We call this “participant observation.”

People like Bill Gates and Elon Musk do not welcome anthropologists bearing notebooks. But the Epstein files, where the global elite are talking to each other in private — or so they thought — open a peephole into their world.

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And what do we find there?

On a mundane level, we can see how they spend sums of money most of us can only dream about.A man with thinning dark hair.Mortimer Zuckerman gives an interview in 2008. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

For example, we learn that in 2011, billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the New York Post and U.S. News and World Report, spent US$219,000 on his collection of horses, $50,000 on skiing and $86,000 to insure his private art collection.

But the Epstein files are most interesting for what they reveal about a web of gifts, favours and financial transactions that knit together what would otherwise be a disparate sprawl of bankers, developers, tech bros, media personalities and high-profile academics.

Author:

• Hugh Gusterson | Professor of Anthropology & Public Policy, University of British Columbia