Now, ask yourself, what happens to all this money if Hillary says she’s through with politics and wants to spend the rest of her life, say, touring the world with Tina Brown to improve the status of women? Answer: Much of the money dries up, as surely as the cottage hand-weaving industry dried up with the invention of the power loom! Of course, some Hillary advisers and friends give money to her (and to the Clinton Foundation) out of sincere affection or appreciation of her dynamic speaking skills. But a lot of it is just a way to buy favor in a potential future Clinton Administration that might have a lot to say about the structure of the financial sector. We Marxists were not born yesterday. We have studied the laws of the bourgeoisie!

The Clinton mode of production, then, is running for office or serving in office. That is the material basis for the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton lifestyle and the whole Clinton institutional structure. In order to keep this mode of production from breaking down, the Clintons–one of them, at any rate–must be at least potentially in the running for a powerful office at all times. If Hillary doesn’t really want to run, she can’t admit it in public. She must maintain the facade of candidacy until the last minute–or else the Foundation will have to cut back and Ira Magaziner might need to find a job. If it looks like Hillary might not run–perhaps because of health reasons–the model would predict that another Clinton, presumably daughter Chelsea, would start making noises about launching a political career. Voila! Data point confirmed. The theory is off to a good start. …