Amid the uproar over a New York city socialist living off his wealthy parents is a lesson: This is exactly how socialism works. Only those who do not understand socialist economics and leftist hypocrisy should be shocked.
Conservative media has recently discovered that Gustavo Gordillo, New York City’s co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, is living in a $1.5 million, gentrified, Brooklyn home courtesy of his wealthy parents.
That Mr. Gordillo is 38 years old and fervently attacks wealth and those who have earned and hold it, only fans the furor’s flames. Mr. Gordillo is underwritten by parents who sent him to Yale, from which he graduated with an art degree; at one time he worked in an art gallery, later claimed to be a union electrical worker, and now seems to lack any visible means of support.
While it is unclear how Mr. Gordillo lives, it is very clear where he lives: in what had been a two-family property purchased in 2019 for less than $1 million but has been heavily renovated into a single house now worth roughly 50% more.
In sum, Mr. Gordillo is himself all he pontificates against. Mr. Gordillo is also an object lesson in socialism.
Those upset by the seeming contradictions in the elements of Mr. Gordillo’s personal story and his beliefs about life and politics fail to recognize that his story is just a microcosm of socialism’s macrocosm.
Socialism has always lived off capitalism. According to Karl Marx’s theory of “dialectical materialism,” socialism is supposed to arise naturally from capitalism. Socialism then expropriates capitalism’s accumulated wealth; the proletariat (workers) take it from the bourgeoisie (owners).
Socialism’s adherents “socialize” (henceforth their name) society’s “means of production,” which of course means taking it from others: owners, stockholders, bond holders, any employee owners, and de facto, regular employees who inevitably see their company’s profitability (and their remuneration) shrink under socialist mismanagement.
Marx was very upfront about this “taking;” undoubtedly, Mr. Gordillo would second it. Socialism will spring from capitalism and then take what capitalism produced and use it.
This taking from capitalism is also socialism’s apogee. Feeding off the “seed corn” of those it expropriates, socialism gains the resources to initially fund its grand designs.
However, without continued subsidies from outside its “doom loop” economy (other nations, as the U.S.S.R. once did for Cuba, or the profits from private enterprise operations that are allowed to continue), it soon lacks the resources to prop up its pie-in-the-sky promises.
Socialism’s economy, based on Marx’s dictum of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” is doomed to failure. Those with “ability” will soon tire of being compensated at the same rate as those with “inability;” while everyone’s “needs” will continue to grow apace. The result? Less and less is produced, while more and more is consumed.
Today, Mr. Gordillo is following the same pattern of socialism’s subsidization by capitalism, albeit on a smaller scale. He is, in fact, “living it,” by living off the resources of his successful capitalist parents. Just as capitalists underwrite socialism on a societal level; so, Mr. Gordillo’s parents are underwriting him on a personal level.
Mr. Gordillo’s story is no contradiction of socialism; it is rather a case study in socialism. Why are people so upset about what socialists themselves are very clear about?
Are they shocked at the hypocrisy of Mr. Gordillo savaging the capitalism that is supporting him? Such leftist hypocrisy should be even less shocking than its socialist economics.
This hypocrisy is practiced repeatedly on issue after issue: from defund the police (where leftists demanding it live in gentrified neighborhoods, like Mr. Gordillo, where crime isn’t a problem) to school choice (while leftists opposing it can afford the best schools, like Yale) to damning profit rates (“We don’t think that anybody should have the constitutional right to double-digit returns on their investment”) while Mr. Gordillo’s gifted house has appreciated roughly 50%, to soaking the “rich” with things like Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied a terre tax (no word on whether Mr. Gordillo’s building is subject to this and, if not, why it isn’t; his parents own at least two homes in Florida).
Those who are castigating Mr. Gordillo should instead be congratulating him. And thanking him. He has given America object lessons in socialist economics and leftist hypocrisy in one easy to understand example: himself.
Perhaps when Americans have seen enough Gustavo Gordillos ranting against the free market system, even as they sponge off it, they will realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch… unless, of course, your mommy and daddy buy it for you.
