Mangione the Adventurist

Luigi Mangione was a man, an average citizen, who decided to take his idea of justice into his own hands. He saw the healthcare companies making billions off of people like him, while denying them coverage for vital procedures. They have been told that if they pay into this system, and they're unlucky enough to become ill, the insurance company will aid them. This often is not what happens. The insurance company happily takes your money, but will do anything possible to not pay out. So he shot a healthcare executive.

This was simultaneously a bad event and a good sign. What do I mean by this? I mean that the people, the working class, are becoming disillusioned. They are no longer willing to sit down, shut up, and get screwed over. When they've been given a bad deal, they're willing to do something about it. There is a resentment in the working class, and people are willing to turn this into direct action.

But these shootings and assassinations are not a good thing. Assassination campaigns may have an effect on destabilizing a regime, but individual actions such as Mangione's are simply counterproductive. The corporate media will run endless stories about what a victim the executive was, how he had a wife and kids, while leaving out the thousands that the executive had condemned to death, their wives and kids. And that is all that will come from this.

Not only will it be a show of force against the working man when Mangione is likely executed or given a life sentence, but the material conditions driving people to these actions will not change. One man cannot change the system. Mangione's issue is that he was only one man. There are no councils, no party, no larger movement that Mangione could have fit into. Perhaps if he was in a grander organization, his efforts and energy could have been directed to something more productive. Say, coordinated assassination campaigns, or agitation, whatever. Instead, he was condemned to be an isolated incident.

And his target was a CEO. Not a company. You can't shoot a company dead in the street. They will simply find a new CEO. The most brilliant move that the executives could do is give some modest concessions. Higher claim approval rates, a public statement of changing course, whatever. Because if the people see that individual assassination is fruitless, they will perhaps organize. But if the people see that individual assassinations produce some effect, illusory or not, then what reason is there to organize? If things get bad, they'll just wait for another Mangione to take action.

Mangione's action shows that the revolutionary sentiment is growing in the working class, but also perfectly demonstrates that without a larger organization, this revolutionary potential is wasted on fruitless adventurism that only inhibits the movement and generates sympathy for the bourgeoisie.