WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.140 Welcome to the debate. Today, we're dissecting 00:00:03.140 --> 00:00:05.759 three words that have managed an impossible journey. 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:09.039 We're looking at a phrase that went from the 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:12.259 blood -soaked cobblestone streets of 18th -century 00:00:12.259 --> 00:00:15.919 Paris straight to the algorithmic neon -lit feeds 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:19.859 of TikTok. Eat the rich. It really is a phrase 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:22.739 that has completely saturated our cultural groundwater. 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.879 I mean, you see it scrawled on cardboard at picket 00:00:25.879 --> 00:00:28.559 lines in Detroit. Yeah, you hear it sampled in 00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:30.879 chart -topping hip -hop. Right. And ironically, 00:00:31.100 --> 00:00:33.539 you buy a ticket to see it as essential theme 00:00:33.539 --> 00:00:36.939 of Oscar -winning cinema. It is everywhere. And 00:00:36.939 --> 00:00:39.759 that ubiquity creates a really strange paradox. 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:42.600 On one hand, it serves as a rallying cry for 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:44.920 a generation facing historic wealth inequality, 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:47.340 a generation that feels totally locked out of 00:00:47.340 --> 00:00:50.920 the economic future. Absolutely. But on the other 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:55.969 hand, it's a meme. It's a hashtag, a vibe. It 00:00:55.969 --> 00:00:59.390 occupies this bizarre superposition between a 00:00:59.390 --> 00:01:02.570 genuine demand for wealth redistribution and, 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:06.069 well, a commodified pop culture aesthetic that 00:01:06.069 --> 00:01:08.290 you can literally buy on a t -shirt at the mall. 00:01:08.689 --> 00:01:10.950 And that is exactly the tension we need to resolve 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:13.489 today. The core question we are facing is this. 00:01:13.909 --> 00:01:16.609 Does the slogan eat the rich represent a legitimate, 00:01:17.150 --> 00:01:19.530 historically grounded demand for economic justice? 00:01:19.819 --> 00:01:22.819 Is it a necessary articulation of class conflict? 00:01:23.180 --> 00:01:26.260 Or has it devolved into a hypocritical, performative 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:28.879 signal that actually obscures the real solutions 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:31.640 we need? I am taking the position that this phrase 00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:35.140 is a potent, necessary metaphor. It serves as 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:37.879 a diagnostic tool for a failing system. And I 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:40.680 disagree. Well, I'd argue it highlights systemic 00:01:40.680 --> 00:01:43.840 inequality in a visceral way that polite policy 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:47.200 language simply cannot. and it has deep historical 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:49.579 roots that give it weight far beyond the internet 00:01:49.579 --> 00:01:52.140 cringe compilations you seem so fond of pointing 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:55.500 out. Fair enough. But I am taking it to position 00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:58.439 that the phrase has become actively counterproductive. 00:01:59.019 --> 00:02:01.260 It suffers from a fatal lack of definitional 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:04.239 precision. While I understand the anger, today 00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:06.980 the phrase manifests less as a revolutionary 00:02:06.980 --> 00:02:10.580 stance and more as first world hypocrisy. It's 00:02:10.580 --> 00:02:12.840 become a fashion statement for the comfort class 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:15.699 that frankly flirts with dangerous extremism 00:02:15.699 --> 00:02:18.759 while alienating the very coalitions needed to 00:02:18.759 --> 00:02:22.020 actually fix the economy. I'd argue it has become 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:25.219 a barrier to progress, not a driver of it. Let's 00:02:25.219 --> 00:02:27.300 get right into it, then. And I want to start 00:02:27.300 --> 00:02:30.520 by stripping away the modern gloss. We really 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:33.319 need to understand that this isn't a slogan invented 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:36.479 by a branding agency or a bored teenager in a 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:39.639 suburban bedroom. This is a historical cry of 00:02:39.639 --> 00:02:42.419 desperation. You're referring to the French Revolution 00:02:42.419 --> 00:02:45.439 connection, I assume? Precisely. We have to ground 00:02:45.439 --> 00:02:48.319 this in the history. The phrase is most commonly 00:02:48.319 --> 00:02:51.080 attributed to the philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, 00:02:51.259 --> 00:02:53.699 a man whose ideas on the social contract were 00:02:53.699 --> 00:02:56.460 fundamental to the era. The quote, which gained 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:58.580 massive traction during the French Revolution, 00:02:58.979 --> 00:03:06.080 is, It is a terrifying image. It is meant to 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:09.120 be terrifying. But look at the context. This 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.740 wasn't a literal threat of cannibalism for the 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:14.199 sake of cruelty. It was a statement of cause 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:17.219 and effect. It's social physics. If you starve 00:03:17.219 --> 00:03:19.860 a population while a nobility hoards grain and 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:22.819 flaunts excess, violence is the inevitable output. 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:25.979 When we see this phrase resurging in the 2020s, 00:03:26.180 --> 00:03:28.620 appearing at Elizabeth Warren rallies in 2019 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:31.139 to support a wealth tax, or being adopted by 00:03:31.139 --> 00:03:33.560 the Land Party in South Africa, it isn't because 00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:35.800 people are just trying to be edgy. It's because 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:38.500 the conditions are rhyming with history. We are 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:40.759 seeing a return of the have -nots in a way that 00:03:40.759 --> 00:03:43.280 feels completely existential to them. I don't 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.460 dispute the historical lineage at all. Rousseau 00:03:46.460 --> 00:03:49.180 is obviously a titan of political thought. But 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:52.939 I strongly dispute the modern application. You're 00:03:52.939 --> 00:03:55.639 drawing a straight line from the starving sans 00:03:55.639 --> 00:03:59.599 -culottes of 1793. People who literally had no 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.960 bread. to a college student in 2024 tweeting 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:05.500 from an iPhone about how much they hate capitalism. 00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:08.759 That is exactly where the hypocrisy gap opens 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:11.639 up. That feels like a dismissal of the underlying 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:13.780 economic reality. I mean, just because someone 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:15.740 has a smartphone doesn't mean they can afford 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:18.639 rent or healthcare. It's a critique of the rhetoric, 00:04:18.860 --> 00:04:21.339 not the suffering. Let's actually look at the 00:04:21.339 --> 00:04:24.120 danger aspect before we even get to the hypocrisy. 00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:28.420 Words have consequences. As of 2023, the Federal 00:04:28.420 --> 00:04:32.120 Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, has explicitly 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:34.879 associated the phrase eat the rich with what 00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:38.279 they classify as anarchist violent extremism, 00:04:38.519 --> 00:04:41.759 or AVE. You're citing a government watch list 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:46.680 to delegitimize dissent? That feels like a very 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:49.500 classic move to silence opposition. I'm citing 00:04:49.500 --> 00:04:51.879 it to show how the rhetoric is perceived by the 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:54.980 institutions responsible for public safety. Look. 00:04:55.129 --> 00:04:58.750 The FBI's Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide notes 00:04:58.750 --> 00:05:01.569 that while using the phrase isn't a crime, obviously 00:05:01.569 --> 00:05:03.230 we have the First Amendment in the United States, 00:05:03.629 --> 00:05:06.370 it is a marker used to identify potential violent 00:05:06.370 --> 00:05:09.490 extremism. When you use the language of the Reign 00:05:09.490 --> 00:05:11.810 of Terror, you really shouldn't be surprised 00:05:11.810 --> 00:05:14.129 when people worry about a Reign of Terror. It 00:05:14.129 --> 00:05:17.009 signals a move away from democratic reform toward 00:05:17.009 --> 00:05:19.860 total destruction. I think that characterizes 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.399 the movement as far more violent than it actually 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:24.500 is. But let's go back to the history for a moment, 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:27.800 because I think you're glossing over why it was 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:30.579 used then and why it's used now. It wasn't just 00:05:30.579 --> 00:05:35.759 Rousseau. On October 14th, 1793, Pierre Gaspar 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:38.100 Chalmet, the president of the Paris Commune, 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:40.720 gave a very famous speech. He was speaking during 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:43.740 the height of the terror, yes, but he explicitly 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:46.100 referenced Rousseau to justify the actions of 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:48.579 the revolutionary government. against hoarders 00:05:48.579 --> 00:05:51.720 and speculators. He was justifying the guillotine. 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:54.720 Let's be very clear about that. He was justifying 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.899 survival in a time of severe famine. He said, 00:05:58.259 --> 00:06:00.660 essentially, that the wealthy had declared war 00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:03.399 on the poor by hoarding resources. The eating 00:06:03.399 --> 00:06:06.420 is a metaphor for redistribution. When I hear 00:06:06.420 --> 00:06:08.860 that phrase today, I don't hear a call for violence. 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.699 I hear a call for a wealth tax. I hear a call 00:06:11.699 --> 00:06:14.750 for food security. To strip it of that intellectual 00:06:14.750 --> 00:06:17.689 charity and focus only on the scary words is 00:06:17.689 --> 00:06:19.810 to completely ignore the suffering that generates 00:06:19.810 --> 00:06:22.050 the words in the first place. You're focusing 00:06:22.050 --> 00:06:24.769 on tone policing rather than resource allocation. 00:06:24.970 --> 00:06:27.589 But that intellectual charity is exactly what 00:06:27.589 --> 00:06:30.509 the modern usage makes impossible. You want me 00:06:30.509 --> 00:06:33.149 to read Eat the Rich as a sophisticated demand 00:06:33.149 --> 00:06:35.670 for a marginal tax rate adjustment. You want 00:06:35.670 --> 00:06:38.449 me to hear it as a nuanced policy proposal. But 00:06:38.449 --> 00:06:40.550 when you look at how it actually propagates in 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:42.509 the wild, that is simply not what is happening. 00:06:42.689 --> 00:06:44.149 Give me an example of what you see in the wild 00:06:44.149 --> 00:06:47.329 then. Look at TikTok. In 2019, and throughout 00:06:47.329 --> 00:06:50.670 the pandemic, there was a massive trend of Eat 00:06:50.670 --> 00:06:53.730 the Rich content. But the targeting was completely 00:06:53.730 --> 00:06:57.610 incoherent. It wasn't directed at the 0 .1 % 00:06:57.610 --> 00:07:00.389 who owned the means of production or the massive 00:07:00.389 --> 00:07:03.930 multinational conglomerates. The anger was directed 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:06.870 at people who studied abroad in college, people 00:07:06.870 --> 00:07:10.129 who had a Spotify premium subscription. Social 00:07:10.129 --> 00:07:13.430 media is always messy. You can find bad takes 00:07:13.430 --> 00:07:16.569 on literally any topic. It wasn't just messy, 00:07:16.769 --> 00:07:20.189 it was cannibalistic, pun intended. My favorite 00:07:20.189 --> 00:07:22.810 example, and by favorite I mean the most depressing, 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:25.850 was the vitriol directed at people who had a 00:07:25.850 --> 00:07:29.170 second refrigerator in their garage. This wasn't 00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:31.970 class warfare against the bourgeoisie. This was 00:07:31.970 --> 00:07:34.610 a circular firing squad within the middle class. 00:07:35.089 --> 00:07:37.649 When the definition of rich slides down to include 00:07:37.649 --> 00:07:40.529 anyone with slightly more comfort than me, the 00:07:40.529 --> 00:07:43.430 movement loses all political utility. It becomes 00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:46.370 a purity test, not a policy platform. It turns 00:07:46.370 --> 00:07:48.329 neighbors against each other while the actual 00:07:48.329 --> 00:07:51.079 billionaires are totally unaffected. I think 00:07:51.079 --> 00:07:54.519 you are over -indexing on teenagers and algorithmic 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:57.420 noise. Of course, social media discourse lacks 00:07:57.420 --> 00:08:00.699 nuance. That's the nature of the medium. But 00:08:00.699 --> 00:08:03.339 does a bad tweet invalidate a legitimate labor 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:20.649 movement? I don't think so. You've lost the plot. 00:08:21.430 --> 00:08:24.110 I disagree that it confuses the allies that actually 00:08:24.110 --> 00:08:26.149 matter. Let's look at where the rubber meets 00:08:26.149 --> 00:08:28.930 the road here. Organized labor. You want to talk 00:08:28.930 --> 00:08:31.069 about political utility? Let's talk about the 00:08:31.069 --> 00:08:34.730 United Auto Workers. In 2023, Sean Fain, the 00:08:34.730 --> 00:08:37.750 president of the UAW, didn't shy away from this 00:08:37.750 --> 00:08:41.190 rhetoric. He leaned into it. Sean Fain is a serious 00:08:41.190 --> 00:08:43.909 operator. I will grant you that. The standup 00:08:43.909 --> 00:08:46.929 strike was a master class in strategy. It absolutely 00:08:46.929 --> 00:08:49.519 was. And during those strikes against the Big 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:53.779 Three, Ford, GM, Stellantis, he framed the conflict 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:56.580 explicitly as a war between the working class 00:08:56.580 --> 00:08:59.440 and the billionaire class. He used the eat the 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.340 rich sentiment to draw a hard line. He wasn't 00:09:02.340 --> 00:09:04.960 talking about refrigerators. He was talking about 00:09:04.960 --> 00:09:07.279 record corporate profits not trickling down. 00:09:07.500 --> 00:09:10.940 And guess what? It worked. They secured historic 00:09:10.940 --> 00:09:13.759 wage increases. They reinstated cost of living 00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.460 adjustments. They won because they had leverage 00:09:16.460 --> 00:09:19.279 and they halted production, not because of a 00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:22.440 slogan on a sign. The slogan galvanized the membership. 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:25.279 It gave them a narrative. It defined the enemy. 00:09:25.879 --> 00:09:28.120 Look at Christian Smalls, the leader of the Amazon 00:09:28.120 --> 00:09:31.200 Labor Union. In 2022, he goes to the White House 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:33.659 to meet President Biden. Does he wear a suit 00:09:33.659 --> 00:09:36.830 and tie to fit in? No. He wears a jacket with 00:09:36.830 --> 00:09:39.870 eat the rich painted right on it. Which again 00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:42.970 circles back to my point about performative aesthetics. 00:09:43.330 --> 00:09:45.750 It wasn't performative. He was in the Oval Office. 00:09:45.909 --> 00:09:48.149 That is the exact opposite of performative. That 00:09:48.149 --> 00:09:50.750 is confronting power directly. He was bringing 00:09:50.750 --> 00:09:53.029 the message of the warehouse floor straight to 00:09:53.029 --> 00:09:55.570 the president's desk. These leaders prove that 00:09:55.570 --> 00:09:58.090 despite the second refrigerator discourse online, 00:09:58.389 --> 00:10:00.629 the core signal of the phrase is still received 00:10:00.629 --> 00:10:02.950 loud and clear by the people who actually challenge 00:10:02.950 --> 00:10:05.840 capital. It has teeth in the real world. I would 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:08.639 argue Small succeeded in spite of that jacket. 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:11.259 Not because of it. But let's pull on that thread 00:10:11.259 --> 00:10:13.899 of aesthetics for a minute. You mentioned Small's 00:10:13.899 --> 00:10:16.299 jacket. I want to talk about how this slogan 00:10:16.299 --> 00:10:18.940 has been commodified. You claim it's a threat 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:21.580 to the system. I claim the system has already 00:10:21.580 --> 00:10:24.240 eaten the slogan and sold it back to us for $15 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:26.600 .99 a month. You're talking about the movies. 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:29.919 I am talking about the eat the rich cinematic 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:33.960 universe. It is practically a genre now. In 2019, 00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:37.539 we had Parasite, Joker, Knives Out, Ready or 00:10:37.539 --> 00:10:41.700 Not. In 2022, we got Triangle of Sadness, The 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:45.500 Menu, Glass Onion. These films follow a very 00:10:45.500 --> 00:10:48.539 specific formula. Rich people are grotesque, 00:10:48.700 --> 00:10:51.360 poor people are desperate, and violence ensues. 00:10:55.570 --> 00:10:58.070 Filmmakers will make movies about wealth inequality. 00:10:58.370 --> 00:11:00.690 That is how culture works. But look at who is 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:03.690 making them. These are massive studio -backed 00:11:03.690 --> 00:11:06.529 productions. Netflix released a docu -series 00:11:06.529 --> 00:11:09.830 literally titled Eat the Rich, the GameStop Saga. 00:11:10.230 --> 00:11:12.629 There's a comic book series called Eat the Rich. 00:11:13.169 --> 00:11:15.929 When a revolutionary slogan becomes a marketing 00:11:15.929 --> 00:11:18.850 tag for a multi -million dollar production, it 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:22.529 has been neutralized. It's what Mark Fisher called 00:11:22.529 --> 00:11:25.750 capitalist realism, the system's ability to absorb 00:11:25.750 --> 00:11:28.730 and monetize its own opposition. Or it has been 00:11:28.730 --> 00:11:31.350 amplified. You can't start a conversation if 00:11:31.350 --> 00:11:34.669 no one is talking about it. No, it becomes a 00:11:34.669 --> 00:11:39.230 spectacle. Listen to this. In 2024, the New Chateau 00:11:39.230 --> 00:11:42.629 International Fantastic Film Festival used Eat 00:11:42.629 --> 00:11:45.870 the Rich as the theme for a retrospective exhibition. 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:48.860 You could buy a ticket to a gala to celebrate 00:11:48.860 --> 00:11:52.019 a slogan about destroying the gala. It allows 00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:55.100 audiences to engage in safe rebellion. You watch 00:11:55.100 --> 00:11:57.580 the menu, you cheer when the restaurant burns 00:11:57.580 --> 00:11:59.840 down, you feel like you've done your political 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:02.259 duty, and then you go home and order something 00:12:02.259 --> 00:12:05.340 on Amazon Prime. It functions as a pressure valve 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:07.759 that protects the status quo rather than threatening 00:12:07.759 --> 00:12:11.299 it. That is a very cynical take, but I see the 00:12:11.299 --> 00:12:14.279 logic. However, I think you're confusing the 00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:17.009 medium with the message. Just because a message 00:12:17.009 --> 00:12:19.830 is delivered via a Netflix subscription doesn't 00:12:19.830 --> 00:12:22.409 mean the viewer doesn't internalize it. But does 00:12:22.409 --> 00:12:25.190 it spur action, or does it just spur merchandise 00:12:25.190 --> 00:12:28.549 sales? It spurs consciousness, and consciousness 00:12:28.549 --> 00:12:30.990 precedes action. You mentioned the hypocrisy 00:12:30.990 --> 00:12:32.909 earlier. I want to circle back to that, because 00:12:32.909 --> 00:12:34.610 I think it's the weakest part of the critique. 00:12:35.289 --> 00:12:37.309 You say Eat the Rich alienates the middle class 00:12:37.309 --> 00:12:39.669 because of the second refrigerator stuff, but 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:42.000 look at the timeline. The usage of the phrase 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.059 spiked specifically following the COVID -19 lockdowns 00:12:45.059 --> 00:12:48.399 in 2020. Right, during the height of the uncertainty. 00:12:48.759 --> 00:12:51.159 That wasn't a fashion statement. That was a moment 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:53.120 where the essential workers are risking your 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.580 lives for minimum wage, bagging groceries and 00:12:55.580 --> 00:12:57.740 driving delivery trucks, while the billionaire 00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:00.080 class added trillions to their net worth from 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.440 the safety of their yachts and private islands. 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:05.860 The disparity was so naked, so obvious that the 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:08.990 slogan became the only rational response. A valid 00:13:08.990 --> 00:13:12.210 observation of disparity, certainly. The pandemic 00:13:12.210 --> 00:13:15.549 laid those fault lines bare. Exactly. The slogan 00:13:15.549 --> 00:13:18.549 functions as a barometer. When you hear it getting 00:13:18.549 --> 00:13:21.690 louder, it is a warning signal. It means the 00:13:21.690 --> 00:13:24.690 social contract is broken. If you ignore the 00:13:24.690 --> 00:13:26.730 signal because you don't like the violent imagery 00:13:26.730 --> 00:13:28.809 or because you think the movies are too commercial, 00:13:29.269 --> 00:13:31.309 you are ignoring the smoke alarm because you 00:13:31.309 --> 00:13:33.809 don't like the sound of the beep. You're complaining 00:13:33.809 --> 00:13:35.950 about the noise while the house catches fire. 00:13:36.139 --> 00:13:38.879 My argument isn't that we should ignore the inequality. 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:41.779 My argument is that this specific smoke alarm 00:13:41.779 --> 00:13:45.000 is broken. It rings when there is a fire, yes, 00:13:45.179 --> 00:13:47.440 but it also rings when someone buys a latte. 00:13:47.779 --> 00:13:50.179 And because it rings constantly and indiscriminately, 00:13:50.460 --> 00:13:53.179 people have stopped listening. They haven't stopped 00:13:53.179 --> 00:13:56.679 listening. The UAW strike proves that. The victories 00:13:56.679 --> 00:13:59.879 in the labor movement prove that. The UAW strike 00:13:59.879 --> 00:14:03.379 proves that strikes work, that organized labor 00:14:03.379 --> 00:14:06.169 works. But let's look at the broader political 00:14:06.169 --> 00:14:10.029 landscape. In a democratic society, to pass a 00:14:10.029 --> 00:14:12.549 wealth tax, which is the actual policy goal here, 00:14:12.590 --> 00:14:15.750 right? You need coalitions. You need the working 00:14:15.750 --> 00:14:17.830 class, but you also need the moderate middle 00:14:17.830 --> 00:14:20.309 class. You need the suburban voter. And you think 00:14:20.309 --> 00:14:23.409 this scares them off? Absolutely. When you scream, 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:26.389 eat the rich, and the FBI is flagging that language 00:14:26.389 --> 00:14:29.590 as adjacent to violent extremism, you terrify 00:14:29.590 --> 00:14:32.529 the moderates. You frame economics as a zero 00:14:32.529 --> 00:14:34.919 sum war. You tell them we are coming for you. 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:38.320 But economics is a zero -sum war when resources 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.820 are finite and hoarding is rampant. It doesn't 00:14:40.820 --> 00:14:43.840 have to be. That is the failure of the slogan. 00:14:44.379 --> 00:14:48.059 It implies destruction, eating, consuming, destroying, 00:14:48.539 --> 00:14:51.419 rather than constructing. It suggests we fix 00:14:51.419 --> 00:14:54.159 the house by burning it down rather than fixing 00:14:54.159 --> 00:14:57.179 the foundation. and that scares away the very 00:14:57.179 --> 00:15:00.120 people you need to vote for the fix. It makes 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:02.740 the movement look like a mob rather than a government 00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.440 in waiting. I would argue that fixing the foundation 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:08.279 has been the promise for 40 years of neoliberalism 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:11.200 and the inequality has only widened. The slogan 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:13.879 resurfaces when polite negotiation has failed. 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.159 It appeared in 1793 because the French monarchy 00:15:17.159 --> 00:15:20.090 refused to reform. It appears now because the 00:15:20.090 --> 00:15:23.090 modern economy has failed to deliver on its promises. 00:15:23.409 --> 00:15:25.830 But it is indistinguishable from a Motorhead 00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:29.490 song. That's the dilution problem again. Motorhead 00:15:29.490 --> 00:15:32.330 had a song called Eat the Rich. Aerosmith had 00:15:32.330 --> 00:15:35.769 a song Eat the Rich in 1993. PJ O 'Rourke wrote 00:15:35.769 --> 00:15:38.529 a book called Eat the Rich. It is background 00:15:38.529 --> 00:15:41.730 noise. It is a t -shirt at Hot Topic. When a 00:15:41.730 --> 00:15:43.549 phrase has been in circulation in pop culture 00:15:43.549 --> 00:15:46.330 for that long, it loses its edge. It just becomes 00:15:46.330 --> 00:15:49.019 retro. And yet it scares you. You just said it 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:51.100 terrifies the moderates. So which is it? Is it 00:15:51.100 --> 00:15:53.539 a harmless pop song or is it a terrifying threat? 00:15:53.679 --> 00:15:56.759 It's both. And that is exactly the problem. It's 00:15:56.759 --> 00:15:58.580 terrifying to the people you need to persuade. 00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:00.879 And it's a harmless commodity to the people you 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.299 want to overthrow. It fails on both fronts. It 00:16:04.299 --> 00:16:06.740 disappoints me because it takes genuine, righteous 00:16:06.740 --> 00:16:10.039 anger, anger that should be channeled into specific 00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:13.700 policy demands and funnels it into a meme that 00:16:13.700 --> 00:16:16.159 is easily dismissed by serious policymakers. 00:16:16.519 --> 00:16:19.559 I don't think Sean Fain or Christian Smalls are 00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:21.879 dismissed. And I don't think the millions of 00:16:21.879 --> 00:16:24.139 young people facing a future where they will 00:16:24.139 --> 00:16:27.299 own nothing are dismissing it. They are using 00:16:27.299 --> 00:16:29.519 the language available to them to articulate 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:32.399 a breaking point. They are saying, we see what 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:35.120 you are doing and we will not accept it quietly. 00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:38.639 And I fear they are using language that ensures 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:41.200 they will remain unheard by the people with the 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.179 power to change it. They are opting for catharsis 00:16:44.179 --> 00:16:47.389 over strategy. We are coming up on time, so let's 00:16:47.389 --> 00:16:50.370 crystallize this. You see a slogan that has been 00:16:50.370 --> 00:16:53.169 cannibalized by the culture it critiques. You 00:16:53.169 --> 00:16:55.830 see a first -world hypocrisy that turns potential 00:16:55.830 --> 00:16:58.409 allies into enemies over Spotify subscriptions 00:16:58.409 --> 00:17:02.090 and garage fridges. Exactly. I see a tool that 00:17:02.090 --> 00:17:04.849 has become counterproductive through commodification 00:17:04.849 --> 00:17:08.569 and imprecision. Between the FBI warnings regarding 00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:11.269 anarchist violent extremism and the Hollywood 00:17:11.269 --> 00:17:13.750 blockbusters turning it into popcorn entertainment, 00:17:14.170 --> 00:17:17.190 It has lost its revolutionary edge. It has just 00:17:17.190 --> 00:17:20.450 become a brand. And I see a phrase that, despite 00:17:20.450 --> 00:17:23.609 its messiness, remains the most potent articulation 00:17:23.609 --> 00:17:25.910 of our current crisis. Whether it's Rousseau 00:17:25.910 --> 00:17:28.230 in the 18th century or a union leader today, 00:17:28.670 --> 00:17:31.329 Eat the Rich is a mirror reflecting a society 00:17:31.329 --> 00:17:33.069 where the gap between the haves and the have 00:17:33.069 --> 00:17:35.750 -nots has become intolerable. It is a warning 00:17:35.750 --> 00:17:37.869 that if we don't address the hunger, literal 00:17:37.869 --> 00:17:40.869 and economic, the metaphor might stop being a 00:17:40.869 --> 00:17:44.400 metaphor. That is a sobering thought. It suggests 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:47.119 that whether we view it as a threat or a commodity, 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:51.059 the persistence of the phrase from 1793 to today 00:17:51.059 --> 00:17:54.339 proves that the underlying wound hasn't healed. 00:17:54.740 --> 00:17:57.759 It certainly hasn't. And until it does, the slogan 00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:00.019 isn't going anywhere. Thank you for joining us 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:02.440 on the debate. We encourage you to look beneath 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:05.220 the slogans on your timeline and question what 00:18:05.220 --> 00:18:08.059 they really signal and what they obscure. Until 00:18:08.059 --> 00:18:08.619 next time.