‘Champagne socialist,’ ‘limousine liberal’, or my personal favourite ‘bourgeois bohemian’ are equivalent accusations aimed at people who advocate socialist thought, while enjoying personal wealth. It is an appeal to a supposed hypocrisy; you cannot be an agent of social justice, as long as you harbour the spoils of such inequality.
People deploy the phrase ‘Champagne socialist’ a lot online. They smirk at their computer screens, shrewdly slipping around comment boards imploding egalitarian arguments with a single phrase. Admirable; how they succinctly rebuke entire arguments without even having to engage with a solitary point! It is an intellectual miracle, no doubt.
James Wright