Socialism triggers the rich

There is inherent frustration among the rich whenever socialism is mentioned; they abhor anyone who dares to raise questions about the distribution of wealth in society; socialism is anathema to them, and that is why they have sort to attach negative stereotypes about socialism which they argue encourages laziness and discourages human creativity, but they never entertain the idea capitalism consolidates wealth and power on the few at the expense of many; they are fine with capitalism that extends freedom to slave owners while rejecting ideologies seeking to protect the poor.

As if there is not enough evidence already, a recent event in the USA gives further illustration of the insensitivity of the rich and elite when it comes to the needs of the average person. On the 31^st of October 2025 President Trump and his cronies celebrated Halloween with an “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody” event, complete with flapper costumes at Mar-a-Lago. The Palm Beach event was held amid an ongoing 31-day government shutdown, and hours before 42 million Americans lost access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

While SNAP recipients agonised over the prospect of real starvation, the rich indulged in opulence. This was not only insensitive, it was malicious from people de-sensitised from reality; they believe poverty is the fault of the poor and ignore its causes.

Poverty is not always founded on not having the resources but the inefficient use of what is available. Poor people are poor not because they do not have resources rather, they are poor because they fail to protect and put the resources at their disposal (labour, numerical advantage, and self-respect) to effective use; all this happens because the average person foolishly ignores the proven instincts of the rich and the elite and chooses to blindly trust their intentions and interpretation of the world.

On the other hand, billionaires and the elites know how to protect their interests, they will invest in selling an idea for everyone to look up to including what success should look like; they will do anything to pay as little as they can get away with in taxes, hence their frustration over socialism should be reason for the average person’s motivation to fight to install it as the primary system for wealth creation and its distribution in society.

Greed is a bad foundation for any socioeconomic model. There is no justification to feed the greedy while ignoring the needy. No one can convincingly argue what is wrong with promoting responsible business models that extend benefits of profit to society than consolidating them on a few individuals while happily distributing the burden of losses to society.

The only way the average citizen can improve his circumstances is not to identify the world through the lens of the rich whose idea of happiness is accruing too many resources and rejoice in seeing everybody else die of need; the average person must not try hard to find good in the systems recommended to him by the rich because there is none. Rather let us be rid of greed and build the socioeconomic systems that provide for family and society while securing the environment.

Socialism is not inherently anti-wealth creation, but it fundamentally redefines how wealth is owned, produced, and distributed, shifting the focus from individual profit to collective benefit and the satisfaction of human needs. Uncontrolled exploitation of the environment to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the greedy elite has serious consequences for the next generation and it must be resisted.

We need each other to create wealth; we must place similar importance in using that wealth for the benefit of all. It is disingenuous to suggest that poverty is a direct product of laziness or poor choices by the poor; nobody chooses to be poor, but circumstances are created by the very rich – for their benefit – that take away realistic choices from the reach of the average person. Blaming the poor for poverty has always been a convenient excuse by the guilt-ridden rich trying to redirect focus away from their greed to the poor for the impact of the very evil systems they profit from and systems that close out the average person from benefitting from the wealth created through input from the wider society.

Far from it, nobody ever got rich on their own. Individuals and corporations build their businesses but all the infrastructure and supporting systems are paid for by the masses – be it roads, security, power, education for the skilled labour at their disposal is funded by the public. It is not too much to ask those who are rich to pay back into the underlying social contract and pay toward the upkeep and improvement of structures from which they benefitted. It is not absurd to demand that the rich pay higher taxes.

When the average person holds his position and does not allow himself to be pushed by the rich, better systems that narrow the gap between people’s dreams and reality will be achieved. We need socioeconomic ideals that create wealth, give control to locals, promote fair exploitation of resources and the distribution of wealth in society. Whatever ideology society settles on, greed must not trump need.