Bronx Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) became a cultural icon after upsetting an entrenched Democratic incumbent in 2018 and subsequently becoming the face of American liberalism. There is even a cartoon action figure based on her. Recently, she turned heads by appearing at Metropolitan Art Museum gala (ticket prices at $35,000 a head) wearing a gown inscribed with “Tax the Rich.” She also recently posed in an ad for an outfit that cost over $3,500.
Republicans like to portray her and her admirers as “socialists” and “communists.” But that is not what they are. These people are actually “capitalist freeloaders.”
Socialists believe that the government should control the means of production and distribution of food, energy, natural resources, health care, financial services etc. Communists take it a step further, also advocating the abolition of private property. But both communists and socialists, as misguided as they are, believe people should work; they just view their respective systems as a way to give themselves a bigger piece of the pie.
AOC and her followers love capitalism. They just don’t want to participate in it. They want those who work in the capitalist system to fork over huge percentages of their income so they can hang out at the bistro, work in do-nothing bureaucratic jobs or milk the tax payers by speculating in subsidized publicly traded stocks such as Tesla.
The COVID epidemic has accelerated this trend. With weekly checks and rent abatements, more people discovered that working is overrated and Netflix, internet poker, social media and video games can be quite entertaining. There was once a time when unemployment was a problem. Now employers can’t find workers.
How long can this continue? Who knows? Our central bankers have become magicians and for years have been able to print money and keep interest rates low while preventing significant inflation. Thus, no one has received the bill for allowing such sloth.
But the national debt is now approaching $30 trillion and inflation is rearing its ugly head. The capitalist freeloaders are expressing their annoyance with the spike in the price of pumpkin spiced lattes. Many of them have even had to wait and extra ten minutes for their scallop tangerine gastrique as restaurants have been unable to find enough workers. Such suffering.
Tolerating the capitalist freeloaders is not necessarily a bad thing. A certain percentage of the population will always believe that society owes them a living. Allowing them to be activists, victims, couch potatoes and do-nothing bureaucrats produces political stability and is infinitely preferable to socialism or communism, which invariable leads to starvation, gulags and mass murder. Just as long as those who work for a living don’t mind supporting them.