Carte Blanche: Socialism As A Hot Commodity

Bill Clark

Go to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s official shop website right now. Seriously, go. You won’t believe your eyes. She is selling a sweatshirt that reads “Tax the rich” for $58. Beyond the irony of the statement paired with the price is a deeper one. AOC has found an innovative way to raise money for her campaign: capitalism - and the currently sold out piece of merchandise suggests that it’s working. 

What is most intriguing about this is how dull the sweatshirt actually is. The color is a boring bluish-grey, there is no hood nor any pockets. So what people must be paying for are the words, or rather the sentiment that the words evoke - socialism. People are selling socialism and it’s quite profitable.

One could even argue that AOC has ridden on the rails of selling socialism for quite some time, given that in 2018 she only claimed $3,588 in wages from The Coffee Shop, before earning $21,875 for her democratic socialist election campaign and her now $178,000 annual income as a member of Congress as a staunch advocate for socialist policies. 

It’s important to note that there is nothing wrong with AOC utilizing capitalism to fund her campaign, and her ability to run a successful grassroots campaign while making little money as a barista is admirable. What’s concerning is that her profit from ‘selling’ socialism makes her sentiments seem disingenuous. More so, is her lack of gratitude for the free market and the irony in her endeavour to dismember it. In a fully socialist society, she, as a barista, would never have had the tools of capitalism to compete in neither politics nor the marketplace of ideas. 

AOC is not the first to profit off socialism or its ancestors. 

Take Michael Moore, the American documentary filmmaker known for his anti-capitalist documentaries. His film Capitalism: A Love Story, described as “an examination of the social costs of corporate interests pursuing profits at the expense of the public good,” grossed $17,436,509 worldwide. Overall, his endeavors are estimated to have set his net worth at around $30 million. At this end of his film, Moore states that “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it.” Moore fails to mention how that would coincide with eliminating his nine luxurious properties. I commend Moore for his profits. I shun his disingenuous moral high ground. I have absolutely no idea if he actually hates capitalism or if it’s just an A-list marketing scheme.

Then there are the cousins of the socialist profiteers: the social justice merchants. These are the radical entrepreneurs that profit by selling perversions of social justice. The free market breeds all kinds of innovative ways to make money, for the queen bee of the social justice merchants, Robin DiAngelo, that’s selling the idea that white people are inherently racist (a completely anti-individualistic argument) and only she with her expensive expertise can exalt you. Besides the lavish income that comes with authoring a New York Times bestseller, she also charged the University of Connecticut $20,000 to speak (which was later cancelled) and the University of Wisconsin $12,750 (70% more than what the other keynote speaker was paid, who happened to be black). On July 9th, she held a sold out event that only lasted three and a half hours followed by a thirty minute book signing which cost $135-$165 for adults and $65 for kids. Out of curiosity I reached out to her assistant inquiring about costs to hire DiAngelo to speak. She told me that at the moment “she is only accepting virtual offers” and that the rate for this is $67,000 - supply and demand baby. Don’t get me wrong, we can all benefit from doing more to eliminate racism, but we don’t need to devalue individualism to do it. DiAngelo wouldn’t have you know this. You wouldn’t give her all your money if you did. 

I don’t know whether to be enraged or impressed. These are poster board capitalists winning Boardwalk and Illinois Ave three times over by simply selling you the idea that capitalism is immoral, the system is evil, and your vote for me, purchase of a $12 movie ticket, or $320 phone call can relinquish your sins (This sounds all too familiar, a certain Martin Luther comes to mind).

Look I get it. Before I became a libertarian I fell for it too. I ate up the connotation that money was evil and capitalism the source. That was before I watched how domineering government oversight runs small businesses into the ground and how money is literally saving our world globally.  Most of all, I realized that the world is much more nuanced than that. If someone is trying to sell you an idea that paints the world in black and white, they are probably just trying to control you. Their lack of intellectual complexity is a sure sign they aren’t engaging you just for the sake of engagement. And the fact that the top names that claim to be fighting capitalism are the same to benefit most from it is a testament to the power of capitalism. 

DiAngelo, much like AOC’s sweatshirt tactic, was selling a hot sentimentalized commodity - one that everyone was buying. A July New York Times piece depicts how large corporations sought to hire DiAngelo while the market was hot. Amazon, Nike, Under Armor, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, CVS, and more all wanted a piece of the pie. The only question is who will be next. 

Thus capitalism never fails to please the consumer. Even if consumers are buying their own destruction. Now that’s customer service.