Since most people don’t pay attention to professional wrestling — or to anything related to professional wrestling — this story isn’t getting half the media attention it deserves. So just to catch everyone up:

• Last July, WWE founder and CEO Vince McMahon retired in disgrace amid multiple accusations of sexual misconduct (read: assault) and previously undisclosed hush-money payments.

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  The latter eventually triggered a federal investigation by the SEC.
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• At the same time, the WWE announced that he would be replaced by two co-CEOs. One of them, his daughter Stephanie McMahon, had just announced that she was taking a leave of absence a month before.

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• Over the following months, the WWE proceeded to rehire 15 wrestlers who Vince had inexplicably fired

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  , and workplace morale reportedly improved dramatically
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  ; in recent years multiple wrestlers had left the company citing Vince’s mercurial and out-of-touch micromanagement.
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• Amid yet another sexual assault accusation, Vince told the WWE board that he wanted to return.

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  When the board unanimously rejected the proposal,
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  Vince then leveraged his 80% ownership sale in the company to appoint himself and other allies to the board.
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  Finally, just the evening, Stephanie McMahon stepped down as CEO while the board voted for Vince unanimously as chairman.
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  Company morale, of course, has crated as multiple wrestlers have voiced fears about getting fired (or re-fired).
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Too long, didn’t read: one of the richest men in the world, facing multiple credible allegations of sexual assault and under investigation by the SEC, has managed to avoid any accountability for it within his company with what looks like an elaborate fake retirement. And all of this also comes at the expense of his workers, many of whom have reason to believe they are going to be fired twice by the same company in a matter of years.

On the merits this should be the lead story on every news show in the country. One reason it won’t be, of course, is that pro-wrestling is a sport for the lower-middle and lower class, which means that people who watch and produce cable news aren’t interested in it. I also suspect we aren’t hearing more about it because it’s such an obviously damning indictment of capitalism that journalists don’t really know how to cover it. If this is what it looks like, a rich guy sexually assaulted several workers, paid them not to talk about it, and then when his company found out and tried to get rid of him he bought his way back in. At this point, the only way McMahon will face any justice at all is if the SEC does anything; and the sums are so trivial in the grand scheme of things that I wouldn’t hold my breath.

This is also, I have to say, a pretty strong vindication of Marxism. When Vince retired, reporters were nearly unanimous in insisting that he was really gone

Just as he is doing today, Vince McMahon made a big show in 1994 of stepping away from the company….Yesterday, the replacement Chairwoman and CEO was Linda McMahon; today, it’s their daughter Stephanie…Today, no one who looks back at the trial in 1994 really believes that Vince for even one moment gave up control of the company.

…in the case of Vince McMahon and the WWE, there’s really just one thing you need to know, a simple fact that cuts through all of this: as of today, Vince’s share in the company still gives him 80% voting power… Here we see the function of all of this talk of shareholders and corporations and the law: to obscure the brute power that controlling the means of production gives Vince McMahon over his workers… at any given moment, shareholder Vince can decide to appoint a new board that will re-appoint him as CEO.

Power under capitalism comes from ownership. The ruling class has set up such an imminent, byzantine apparatus of management that it’s easy to think that’s where the power comes from; that’s why reporters, watching as Vince abdicated his title as CEO, couldn’t grasp how little this meant. But over the past week, Vince has reminded us: it means everything.

We can extend our solidarity to WWE’s workers, especially those who are now fearing for their jobs; and also, of course, to Vince’s victims. We can call for unionization in the WWE, and we can call for all sorts of internal reforms of their HR and corporate governance policies. But if you want trouble that even Vince McMahon can’t buy his way out of, just look at the only danger he’s still facing: the state. That’s why we need socialism.