Unleashing The Commodity Leviathan

In his 1651 work Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes lays out a political philosophy based on the social contract. He depicts the 'state of nature' as a grim, war-torn existence, 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short', driven by competition, mistrust, and pride. To escape this, people surrender their natural rights to a sovereign, ideally an absolute monarch, forming the 'Leviathan', a powerful, unified authority enforcing peace and stability. Hobbes argues that only an unchallenged central power can prevent chaos, reflecting his view of humans as naturally selfish and conflict prone. Though criticized for its authoritarianism, his theory highlights the trade-off between freedom and security, with the Leviathan symbolizing the necessity of strong governance for societal order.

As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) dismantles parts of Washington, D.C.'s bureaucratic ‘Leviathan,’ job losses will hit the capital and other cities tied to the inefficient U.S. government. Cuts to reckless spending and subsidies, revenue for beneficiaries, will also sting. In theory, shifting resources from government to the private sector boosts long-term productivity, but in the short term (the next year or two), it hampers growth. Laid-off workers by government contractors won’t instantly find new jobs, dragging down confidence and spending. Investors familiar with business cycles know inflation stems from shortages, demand, and shaken confidence, factors worsened by tariffs, trade wars, job uncertainty and imperialistic threats, which will deepen global distrust in public institutions. On the other hand, economic performance drives government approval; Trump’s support will tank if tariffs spark inflation and will collapse entirely if he drags Americans into conflicts to satiate the colonialist property dreams of those now pulling the strings between the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Anyone who understands the business cycle knows that an economy’s stage within it is heavily influenced by commodity price trends and the ability of economic actors to pass higher input costs onto their customers. A quick glance at the geopolitics of commodity supply reveals, no PhD required, that among the ten largest countries blessed with the most commodities, only three (the USA, Canada, and Australia) are not part of the emerging mercantilist Global South, which has begun rejecting the imperialism historically imposed by the increasingly misnamed 'developed markets.

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