The Epstein files tell us, if one has the stomach to read them and the spine to accept their implications, that the ultra-rich inhabit not merely a different tax bracket, which consists of paying little to no taxes when they are the only ones who should pay most to all the taxes, but a different moral jurisdiction.
Jeffrey Epstein was not powerful because he was mysterious; he was mysterious because he was protected. The so-called “files” consisting of emails, images, video, flight logs, depositions, settlement records, and sealed testimonies pried open only after years of legal trench warfare - reveal a pattern that is by now impossible to deny: wealth, when concentrated to obscene levels, functions as a solvent. It dissolves law, accountability, and shame.
First, they expose how money purchases proximity to power. Epstein was not an outcast skulking on the fringes of high society; he was welcomed into it. He socialized with financiers, politicians, royalty, and self-styled “philanthropists” who publicly sermonized about virtue while privately enjoying the perks of impunity. The corruption here is not merely sexual but institutional. Prosecutors hesitated. Police were leaned on. Plea deals were engineered so lenient they might as well have been engraved invitations to reoffend.
Second, the files demonstrate how the ultra-rich outsource risk. Epstein’s victims bore all of it -legal, psychological, social - while he bore none. When caught, the machinery of privilege whirred into action: elite lawyers, compliant judges, sealed records, and a corporatized media culture oddly deferential to “important men.” This is not conspiracy theory; it is class analysis with footnotes.
Third, they reveal the fiction at the heart of plutocratic mythology: that extreme wealth is a proxy for intelligence, responsibility, or moral seriousness. Epstein’s fortune did not make him enlightened; it made him insulated. It allowed him to construct a private universe in which young women were commodities and consequences were optional. That universe did not collapse until public outrage overwhelmed the defenses money had built.
Fourthly, they show us that the ultra rich are 9 times out of 10 ultra liars.
And finally, most damningly, the files show how accountability, when it comes at all, comes too late and too partially. Epstein was suicided conveniently beyond cross-examination, and the system that enabled him remains largely intact. Many who benefited from his protection have never been meaningfully questioned, let alone charged. The lesson absorbed by the scumbag powerful is not “don’t do this,” but “be more careful.”
So what do the Epstein files tell us about the corruption of the ultra-rich? They tell us that extreme morbid wealth rots the soul. Because when wealth becomes unanswerable, it becomes obviously predatory. That secrecy is not an accident but a business model. And that a society which allows money to trump justice should not be surprised when monsters flourish in first class while their victims are told to sit quietly in the back, if they are acknowledged at all.
This is not a scandal. It is a symptom. And is screaming that power should be answerable to law rather than the other way around.