Socialism so rich? Why is socialism a rich kids club?

Take a look at socialist history and all the socialist thinkers of the 19th and early 20th century. What do they all have in common? They’re all from wealthy backgrounds. And if you look on Twitter, you’ll see that many of the biggest and loudest voices advocating for socialism are relatively well-off and educated, that’s something that hasn’t changed in 150+ years.

Is being a well-off socialist a contradiction? No. I think you can support socialist ideas and be rich. I don’t think all rich people are evil, nor do I think that wealth and having luxuries is a bad thing. I don’t want everyone living in squalor. I don’t believe in pushing people down. Instead, I want to uplift everyone, which is why rather than speaking about privilege, I frame it in terms of disadvantage, because it’s harder to deny and using uplift as a framing, it sounds more positive and I think people respond better to that.

Call me an optics cuck, but I think messaging is everything and that’s something I learnt in university, where I studied communications and accidentally fell into what I do now, writing. I never intended on being a writer, and I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I try my best. My style isn’t flowery, but I think it’s easy to understand, approachable, and passionate. I hope that whenever you read something I write, that you feel some sort of emotion because art is so important. Art is what makes life fun and gives it colour. Writing is an art and feelings are a big part of life. What is life if you have no emotions? I know I feel something whenever I write. I also hope that what I write makes you think more about life and the world.

There’s a lot about me that stands out among the poor, where I stand now; and among the middle class, where I grew up. I am quite educated. I have a master’s degree and besides that, I love to read. Education really changes people and even if you don’t have much formal education, if you read a lot, I think that makes you develop more. My great grandfather, Josh, immigrated to America at the age of 20 and knew no English, but rather heaps of other languages. The polyglot knew Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Russian, and Polish. When you live in a country, eventually you learn the language because you need a job and you want to make friends so you can have a better life, otherwise why did you leave the old country? Josh had no interest in attending university, and it wasn’t because he wasn’t smart enough. He just didn’t have the money and was too exhausted after going to yeshiva in Belarus for some years. Rather, he set up shop and had a newsstand next to Columbia University. He’d chat with professors and students who’d buy things from his stand. He even got to know and befriended prominent professors and even knew President Eisenhower (if you want another crazy political connection, his wife was from the same town as David Ben-Gurion and she knew him! Even weirder, Josh’s brother played David Ben-Gurion in Exodus)! He always loved to read even before moving to America. I never knew Josh, because he died before I was born, but I heard a lot of stories about him. When my grandparents sold their second home, they gave me a bunch of Josh’s old books and one of them was You Might Like Socialism by Corliss Lamont. I guess this dispels the stereotypes of: working class people don’t read about socialism and Eastern Europeans hate socialism. But there’s a reason the stereotype about the working class not reading about socialism exists and I’ll talk about that in this blog post.

I have a bad tendency to amass books and then never read them. I’m not proud of that. But I guess being of a younger generation, we consume media differently than older generations, and that doesn’t make us more or less smart. Books aren’t the only way of learning and they’re not the only valid thing to read. If books aren’t your thing, it’s great that we have many other formats available now, more than just the magazines of the past, we have blogs in all lengths now and because writing has been democratised you can read all sorts of perspectives and in all sorts of styles, so there’s bound to be something that resonates with you. If that’s what you think of my writing, well I’m pleased. You could be reading work from way more brilliant minds than my own, but you’re here. Thank you so much for listening to what I have to say.

Back to the question asked in the title of this post. Why is socialism a rich kids club? I think there are a few reasons for that. I’ll break it down into three:

1. Theory is intimidating to read. A lot of socialist circles put more emphasis on reading than on action — they’re like elitist book clubs (ironic).
2. Many people’s first exposure to socialism is in university. University is not within reach for all, especially those from poorer backgrounds.
3. Who has the time to think about socialism? When you’re poor, it’s all about survival.

These three reasons are all interconnected. When you’re from a wealthier background you have more time on your hands so you can think about how to make the world a better place and you usually had a better formal education so you can understand texts about socialism more easily. Just like how a lot of the great writers and artists we celebrate today were all from wealthy backgrounds. Let’s explore these three reasons.

Let’s first talk about the elitist attitudes in these communities. I’ve said this over and over again, the reason people don’t get into a thing, be it a hobby or a topic, is because of snobbish, elitist attitudes among the community who are interested in that thing and because it can be overwhelming and where does a novice begin? It’s like throwing someone into the deep end of the swimming pool when they don’t know how to swim. It’s like throwing a video game controller into someone’s hands for the first time and expecting them to know how to play a fast paced first person shooter video game. How about you start them on something like Pong, Space Invaders, Pac Man, or if you want something more modern, Animal Crossing or Pokemon, first?

Politics is overwhelming and if you don’t come from a very political family, you’ll feel really lost in discussions about these topics. In online politics communities, there’s a lot of insular language used and that can be intimidating for a newcomer who wants to make a difference in their community. Some left wing communities act like elitist book clubs and will not consider you a real leftist unless you’ve read a laundry list of theory. I know that labels mean something and you have to have some sort of purity test somewhere, but that kind of gatekeeping is really extreme. And let’s not talk about all the unwritten rules and stuff. I have a lot of empathy for people who feel left out and gatekept out of communities because I am on the autism spectrum and socialising in general makes me nervous. I don’t know all the rules. How am I expected to know? Can you explain the rules to me first before shouting at me and calling me an idiot?

At the end of the day, I think politics is about action and just sitting around and talking about solutions is just the first step. Poor people need help now. Rich people can afford to talk about things. Poor people need to see action.

I’ve also talked how there is not equal opportunity in society as it is now. Higher education is out of reach for so many. It’s priced like a luxury but treated like a necessity. How is this fair to those who don’t come from money? Once upon a time in England working class kids had a chance to go to university because there were no tuition fees and if you needed financial support for transport costs or rent, the government had grants for that and it wasn’t too hard to find a job. Those days are long gone. While it’s not as bad in England as it is in America, the fact that someone can get into debt because they were trying to follow their dream and do everything right according to the life script of go to school, get a good job, work, (hopefully) retire, and die. Sure, your debt can be forgiven if you’re British, but the fact that there’s debt for getting an education is ridiculous and it holds back millennials and zoomers from buying houses and cars and having a decent life, and from a fiscal conservative point of view, they can’t stimulate the economy if they’re preoccupied with paying off student loans. Even worse in America where your student loan debt cannot be forgiven and the only way for you to get out of it is if you die, but the banks will chase after your family, just like the mafia.

There’s a lot of talk about critical race theory being taught in schools, and I don’t like that framing. I think that history should be taught in an honest way and must incorporate talking about human rights. Don’t worry white people, racial justice affects you too! We can’t forget how the US has treated immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean and anti-semitism is still a problem today with Jews being one of the top targets of hate crimes. No, it isn’t that Eastern Europeans and Mediterraneans were POC and became white, it wasn’t about that — it’s about differences in culture, religion, and language. Race is an arbitrary thing anyway and it is socially constructed. I’m aware of this because this is most of my background, but I think that others should be aware of this and should be outraged about that part of American history too. We should be outraged by the treatment of Native Americans, black people, Asians, and Latinos. What comes next is uplifting everyone and making it right for all Americans. Lift people out of poverty and ensure that no one is starving or homeless. Give everyone the best education and healthcare possible, free at the point of service. Make the infrastructure the best in the world.

We need to have an honest conversation and honest education on Civil Rights history, feminist history, LGBT history, disability rights history, and of course economic inequality and class issues need to be taught in history too. At the end of the day, the colour that matters most in society is green and when you have money it buys peace of mind, comfort, and opportunity. History is told from the winners’ point of view and dismisses the marginalised.

Speaking of green, let’s talk about university. In America there’s a lot of inequalities in education. Sure, schools are integrated on paper, but in reality cities are still very segregated, especially Chicago, the big city closest to me growing up. As long as school funding is connected to property taxes and values and there’s no redistribution, there will always be inequalities in public education and this has knock on effects for the rest of a person’s life. I grew up in well-off suburbs and small towns and took this for granted and it wasn’t until I went to university and talked to students who went to inner city schools that I found out about these inequalities. I remember in my school they would be against redistribution and “Robin Hood” laws because they didn’t want their funding to go to “less deserving” poor kids. In poorer schools, the technology and textbooks aren’t as up to date and the school building isn’t always well-kept. These things are crucial to having a good education. In history classes, we have a problem of only talking about the capitalist point of view, or whenever socialism is discussed, it’s always in a negative light and portrayed in a dishonest way. It’s not until you get to university that you get to see a more honest view of socialism and get exposed to different ideas.

It also doesn’t help that these students come from families who are living paycheque to paycheque and are focused on the here and now, just surviving and getting by. When the kids are old enough to work, the families get their kids to work to help support the family. When your attention is split between work and school, it’s harder to get straight As and do extracurriculars to get into these prestigious universities, where you are given better opportunities. And if you’re a poor kid who gets into a prestigious university, it’s not the most welcoming environment.

Tuition continues to skyrocket, which hurts the working class and poor the most, but is also not great for the middle class who are too rich for financial aid, but not rich enough to pay for university without student loans. University is out of reach to many. At least in the old days, you could pay for it with a summer job, but now, no way! And without a degree, a lot of well-paying jobs will never even consider hiring you. And even if you have a degree, it’s no guarantee you’ll get a well-paying job. The middle class continues to shrink and wages are stagnant. The vicious cycle continues with more and more of us being part of the working class, only focused on survival and not having a lot of free time.

Speaking of being poor and having little time on our hands, when you’re only focused on putting food on the table, paying rent, and are always exhausted after work and have no leisure time, who has the time to think about socialism and how there’s a better way? You don’t have the time to read theory. You don’t have the energy to organise and protest. Your mental health is suffering. To quote Pink Floyd, “you shout and no one seems to hear”.

The rich get to wallow all day on their divans reading theory and writing about socialism, while the poor deal with reality.

This is why socialism is a rich kids club. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I think we need all kinds of people writing about socialism and advocating for it and writing about it in simple, easy to understand, relatable ways. I really hope that my writings here accomplish that.