Here’s what I don’t get. First, I agree that Bernie’s wealth is nothing for him to be ashamed of, is totally reasonable for someone at his stage in life, and three houses makes sense, given his circumstances. I mean, it’s not like the homes are in Aspen, or Malibu.
What I get stuck on is the insistence that his millions of dollars and three homes is reasonable, but someone else’s billions of dollars and their own multiple homes are not. Who judges what’s appropriate for anyone else to have? Bernie, if you’ll recall, used to rail against millionaires, too, but that dried up when he became one.
I was saying to my wife yesterday that socialism’s first and biggest sin, at least in a country like the US, is telling people that they don’t have enough, just because someone else has way more. The poorest in America still live in a style that a huge part of the rest of the world can only dream of. Part of the American dream that so many of them aspire to is the chance to make something of themselves by their own hard work. It’s to America’s shame that an Indian or Vietnamese can come here, work three jobs, raise a big family, and, through frugality and sacrifice, end up owning a home and business, all while struggling with the language, while Americans born here blow money on booze and cigarettes, cars they can’t afford, Playstations, iPhones, and whatever other useless fripperies the TV tells them they need, and then wonder why they can’t get ahead.
Then Bernie comes along and tells them that it’s not their fault they’re poor, it’s those pesky billionaires who are hoarding all the wealth. Am I allowed, then, to point at anyone who has more than I do and blame them because I have less? Because that’s what Bernie’s preaching. He says that billionaires don’t need that much, so why can’t I say that a millionaire doesn’t need a lake house? Rent a spot in a campground and pitch a tent like the rest of us, Bernie. Right? If he can make a million dollars writing a book, why can’t Jeff Bezos make a billion dollars selling server space?
Capitalism is still the best way for the most people to improve their lives. If you don’t like what you have, work harder, be frugal, save your money. That’s how my grandparents did it, after they escaped the socialist paradise of the USSR, and that’s how millions of immigrants are doing it today.