Stop Changing the World With Violence

Are lone gunmen as entitled as the elite they claim to defend against?

When the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down by a masked man on the busy streets of New York, the internet erupted with visions of what this could mean. Was it a vigilante? A victim of the American healthcare system? A former employee? A revolutionary? Was this the event that would trigger a mass movement against extractive capitalism?

In contrast, extractive capitalism barely blinked. In fact, UnitedHealthcare executives carried on with their 9am meeting barely two hours after Thompson was killed. It is a shocking and revealing fact, one that makes perfect sense when you stop to think about it. Brian Thompson was as unimportant to UnitedHealthcare as its customers because the customers who die from denied insurance policies can be replaced, just as CEOs who are killed can be replaced. The next CEO of UnitedHealthcare will, however, be greatly rewarded for their risk—presumably with the industry’s biggest paycheque to date.

Thompson’s alleged killer was arrested five days after the shooting in a McDonalds with a gun, some fake IDs, cash, and a manifesto. It was short, as one might expect from a data engineer (if suspect Luigi Mangione did in fact pull the trigger). The manifesto states “these parasites had it coming” without clearly referencing who the parasites are. The following paragraph infers said parasites are within the American healthcare industry who “continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.” It is clear to the author that “something had to be done”:

“Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

We do not know, yet, if this manifesto was written by Luigi Mangione, or if he killed Brian Thompson. However, the tone speaks volumes. It certainly would not surprise me if this was the manifesto of a 26-year-old who thought they were the very first person ever to face the reality of corruption and greed “with such brutal honesty”. It would also not surprise me if that 26-year-old, self-isolating from any community with whom to discuss their beliefs, came to the conclusion that murdering a CEO would in any way help. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted to be caught.

You might think, given everyone lives within the same economic system and falls on the same spectrum of suffering, that assassination attempts are carried about by a range of people which reflects the diversity of our societies. That is not the case. If we look at Presidential assassinations in the United States, the alleged perpetrators are always white, and almost always in their mid-twenties:

• John Wilkes Booth was 26 when he assassinated Abaraham Lincoln

• Charles J. Guiteau was 39 when he assassinated James Garfield

• Leon Czolgosz was 28 when he assassinated William McKinley

• Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 when he assassinated JFK

• John Hinckley Jr. was 26 when he attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan

• Thomas Crooks was 20 when he attempted to assassinate Donald Trump

Murder is one of the most vivid acts of entitlement in the world. Frankly, it’s unsurprising that those on the top of the social pyramid created by extractive capitalism would typically be the the only group to think themselves as bearing the right to take another’s life for the wider sake of society. Whether or not Thompson’s murder achieves anything, it is frightening that there are those who take it upon themselves to remake the world as they see fit through violence. It is a mirror of the same violence they claim to decry.

I believe acting in self-defence is imperative in a crisis. I would like to see the climate movement engage in more acts of self-defence. I support the right to sabotage the private property of polluting industries in protest, and I don’t believe we have to forgive our abusers if ever we reach a moment of collective justice. I think the fight to save the earth’s systems and our own societies from collapse is a fight to save ourselves. It is a collective act of self-defence, and it is utterly justified. Its very collective nature sets it apart from lone gunmen who believe they are the arbiters of honest assessment and have the last word in what the world should look like.

Systemic change is complex. It cannot be achieved by a single act, or a single person. Systems are not transformed by events, they react and mitigate against events. We did not learn from the global financial crisis, COVID-19 or Trump’s first term. The world barely blinked when over thirty million Pakistanis were displaced by floods in 2022, and sent merely platitudes to the hurricane victims of 2024. We are barrelling towards the sixth mass extinction and global fossil fuel production is increasing every year. If it were as simple as taking out a couple of bad individuals, or cowing the elite, then the planet’s violent instability would have done so already.

The reality of human violence is the result of thousands of years of extractivism and exploitation. It promotes violence because it feeds off of violence. Those who engage in violence at its service are in no way excused, but rather than argue their evil nature we should reflect upon their lack of imagination and cowardice. These people don’t want the world to change because it suits them very well. This is actually a perfectly normal conclusion. That they don’t want it to change at the expense of others is a conclusion that can only be supported by an economic, political and cultural system which promotes separation and individualism. Everything is geared to support that narrative. Those who are thriving in it are perhaps not all evil—they’re just very good at doing what they’re told and see no reason to question the world they maintain.

Brian Thompson’s murder won’t stop for-profit maximisation of healthcare in the USA. It has provoked more conversations about it, certainly, and galvanised, if not radicalised, a cross-section of the internet who are intrigued by the daring and physique of the alleged killer. Some will say his actions were worth that alone. Yet, simply talking won’t help American society progress towards a more equitable future. To get there, they will have to organise systemic attacks on the infrastructure—both ideological and physical—which makes extractivism and exploitation possible. To arrive at a future of non-violence, we must coordinate and defend against violence. To do so alone is fundamentally inefficient.

The radical flank is a critical wave in any social movement, making the peaceful protesters look amenable and worthy of an invitation to the table: MLK’s ideals were buttressed by the radicalism of Malcolm X. I have seen arguments to suggest that Thompson’s killer represents the radical flank. I worry these arguments are misleading because they suggest that any single person acting alone has the same right to change the world as a collective of people who have hammered out their ethos and strategy by listening to one another and sharing their lived experiences. I worry that a movement will be reduced to a single person, painted as heroic or evil, who will distract from the relentless on-the-ground organising taking place all across the world, and especially in the USA in the lead up to Trump’s inauguration. I worry we will fall prey to utilitarian arguments where the ends justify the means and murder takes precedence over justice. I worry young men in their twenties will think they have found an easy way to achieve the greatness they believe themselves entitled to. I worry we will conflate killing in cold blood with self-defence.

I understand—and even feel—the emotional impetus to champion what looks like an insurrection against extractive capitalism. But the sad truth is extractive capitalism won’t stop for anyone, and if violence is its currency then no amount of death will ever be enough to shock it into submission. It must be dismantled, hospiced, destroyed; such is a labour of care and dedication and bravery. And, to be brutally honesty, that is much harder work than any single act of violence.

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