A wave of controversy has followed a disturbing question originally attributed to the late US financier Jeffrey Epstein – “how do we get rid of poor people altogether?”
The question is said to have appeared in a message associated with Epstein and mentioned in the context of his communications with US businessman Bill Gates.
Predictably, reactions have split between those who read it as evidence of a morally corrupt mindset among the US elite, and those who dismiss it as unsubstantiated due to the absence of a verifiable record.
Yet, insisting on resolving the matter at this narrow level – did Epstein ask it or not? – misses the point. History is not governed solely by recorded quotes or verified transcripts. It is shaped by structures that harden into policy and decisions that are implemented quietly, often without ever being framed as moral choices.
Whether Epstein uttered the question verbatim is thus ultimately not the central issue. What matters far more is that the world we inhabit has for decades behaved as though such a question had indeed been asked, and as though an answer had already been agreed upon.
In every major financial crisis worldwide, public funds are mobilised to rescue banks and large corporations, while vulnerable populations are left to absorb unemployment, inflation, and the erosion of public services.
Under the banner of “economic reform”, austerity measures routinely target education, healthcare, and social protection, treating them as expendable costs rather than fundamental rights.
In this logic, poverty is no longer understood as the outcome of an unjust system. It is reframed as an individual failure. The poor are those who “did not adapt”, “failed to invest in themselves”, or “could not keep up with the market”.
Responsibility is thus shifted from structure to subject, not merely as rhetoric, but as policy embedded in laws, budgets, and official discourse.
Alongside this shift operates another equally ruthless mechanism: invisibilisation. Poor neighbourhoods are pushed to the margins of cities. Homelessness is criminalised. Migrants and refugees are reduced to statistics or security threats.
“Getting rid of the poor” does not require physical extermination; it can be achieved through social erasure by stripping people of voice, representation, and horizons.
Seen in this light, the question attributed to Epstein, whether accurate or not, is revealing rather than scandalous. It does not point to a singular moral aberration on his part alone, but to a deeply entrenched elite logic that evaluates human worth almost exclusively through economic utility.
Those who do not produce enough, consume enough, or integrate into the market enough become surplus to requirements.
This logic is rarely enforced through overt coercion alone. It is normalised through a technocratic vocabulary of efficiency, growth, competitiveness, and fiscal sustainability. These terms appear neutral, even reasonable, yet they consistently justify policies whose costs are borne by the same groups.
Those who object are dismissed as populists, idealists, or as failing to grasp the “complexities of the economy”.
This is why the obsessive focus on whether Epstein actually asked this question is a distraction. The more urgent question is how many meetings, reports, and political decisions over recent decades have effectively operated on its premises. How often have policies been designed as if poverty were a burden to be minimised rather than a condition to be addressed?
What draws attention in some elite scandals, particularly those involving the sexual exploitation of children or minors, is that these acts are rarely just about sexual desire. They often express absolute control. Children represent vulnerability, allowing corrupt elites to impose their will without resistance and reflecting their belief in the ability to dominate the world itself.
Such behaviour exposes a profound ethical double standard: economic and social power grants a sense of superiority at the expense of basic human principles and empathy. From this perspective, sexual exploitation becomes a mirror of the assumption of absolute authority, seeing humans as instruments, just as some global policies treat the poor as numbers or burdens to be reduced rather than the bearers of rights to be protected.
Ultimately, what matters is not whether Epstein actually asked this question or wrote it in an email to Gates. Too often, global policies today behave as if the question had been asked and as if the answer had already been given.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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