Thread by @TheAmishDude

But "income inequality" is not about poverty. It is about social status. This is VERY important to understand.

Those who complain the loudest about "income inequality" are upper-middle class professionals, most of whom are educated beyond their intelligence.

https://twitter.com/RiverTamYDN/status/1095303050808487936

They were in the top 10 of their high school class, got a decent SAT score and think they deserve to have special status.

But they don't really. They, however, may work for or near very rich people, whom they don't respect.

This is not entirely wrong. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos are not the smartest people in the world. And although they'd surely be millionaires, a lot of luck allowed them to be billionaires.

This is "unfair" to the income inequality crowd, not that anyone's actually poor or starving or suffering, but that some people have outsized social status -- or are perceived to.

Here's why income inequality is so pernicious: While wealth is not a zero-sum game, social status definitely is. And that's what Marxism is really all about. It's not about poverty or even fairness, it's about social status.

Why do you think Marxism appeals so much to AOC? She's a textbook example. She went to a fancy school but ended up as a bartender. That is not a point of "working class" pride for her, she was bitter. She deserves cocktail parties and expensive clothes. She Went To College.

"I fight for you." is also a claim for social status. It means "I am a member of the nobility who works on behalf of the commoners, so I deserve not only noble social status but also moral social status for being so altruistic."

But here's the biggest problem: Since social status, unlike wealth, is a zero sum game, there will always be a form of Marxism. Do not placate it by thinking alleviating poverty is what they are about. They are not. They just want to be higher on the social pecking order. /end