To think champagne socialists aren't such a bad thing?

[DaisyChaining]

Forgive me if I've got the definition wrong - but if you're a champagne socialist, aren't you just a rich person who thinks poor people should be treated fairly and are happy to pay more tax to ensure this?

I keep seeing it used as an insult on here and I don't get it. What's wrong with that? I feel like we could do with a hell of a lot more 'champagne socialists', to be honest.

I don't see the problem either. I think people think that they have the luxury of being able to worry about other people because they are rich and don't live in the real world. Well it's better than being rich/well-off and not caring about anyone else.

Yes, better a champagne socialist than a champagne Tory.

YADNBU.

Well it's better than being rich/well-off and not caring about anyone else.

Here here

Quite Relentless

I think it often suggests failing to 'check your privilege' though? Let them eat brioche, and all that.

It's just some stupid phrase coined by idiots who think that someone's wealth negates their humanity and compassion. They don't realise the two things aren't mutally exclusive.

I think as I've got older I realise how snipey people are and how quick they are to judge others. Must be a shame to live like that. I'd rather have a champagne socialist (what a shit phrase) than a heartless, ruthless, soulless toff

I always get a feeling from the phrase that it means well off people who sit sipping champagne/prosecco (just not tinnies and alcopops) and discussing the poor working class and discuss 'what needs to be done' but don't actually do anything to help ie donate their money or time, volunteer, spend money in their local economies instead of skiing in Winter and hot summer holidays, get onto board/councillor positions to try to effect real change.

That's what I think

It's just a lazy put down that diminishes the people who use it than anything else. The same goes for 'do gooder'.

YANBU its just a phrase used to discredit the left and now more often to discredit the educated.
My DH grew up on a council estate with a single mother.... he went to uni and did very well.... now he gets called a champagne socialist.
I get called a champagne socialist and i left home at 16 and have worked for minimum wage ever since.

Like 'liberal elite' it just seems to be used to shout down anyone who ever even read a page of a book and so doesnt just take The Sun at its word.

more than anything else.

It's a slur.

YANBU.

I think people also think people with money should give every last bean to the "poor" and if they don't they're hypocrites and champagne socialists etc.

Tiptop - that's ridiculous about your husband and you being called champagne socialists. I mean wtaf?

Yup they are just stupid phrases that people chuck about.

"N'awww you thinking for yourself again and not buying the headlines in the right wing news? You're such a fucking liberal elistist prick"

Makes my blood boil the way people are so closed-minded

YANBU. According to some you're a champagne socialist if you have some wealth but still show compassion and a social conscience. Meanwhile if you're poor and upset with the status quo you're engaging in the politics of envy. Both slurs to stop people questioning things.

I just think of it as people that know they are lucky in life and appreciate that not everyone has money. wealth,the advantages that they may have had. I would rather people were like this than the opposite, me me me, im okay jack attitude. At least they care and want to change things.
Nothing wrong with that.

Some people find it very hard to get their heads round anyone voting except in self interest. They don't get altruism.

You can't win. Russell Brand (I know, I know!) summed it up pretty well:

"When I was poor and complained about inequality they said I was bitter; now that I'm rich and I complain about inequality they say I'm a hypocrite. I'm beginning to think they just don't want to talk about inequality.”

I think of it exactly as DontBuyMumANewCashmere said.

I'd also add that champagne socialists usually have double standards, like certain Labour MP's who choose to send their kids to private schools whilst extolling the virtues of state school. Or celebs who preach about climate change while flying about the world in private jets etc.

One rule for them and another for the so called 'plebs' that they claim to empathise with.

It was first used by the right to try to prove the point that there is no difference between the Parties.

The early Philanthropists, by definition were champagne socialists.

I've heard people say that slavery wasn't (and isn't) such a bad thing because Black people had slaves.

No-one takes any notice of what those downtrodden have to say, so who else can champion the rights of others, exept those on top?

The world is full of selfish people and it really upsets them when they see not everyone is like them. Hence they throw slurs around to make them feel ashamed.

Isn't a champagne socialist someone who is wealthy but says the rich should pay, but despite being rich / well off themselves never sees themselves as such? That's what I thought it was - more of a let other people pay but not us?

I thought it meant people who "do as I say not as I do", e.g. some celebrities who tell ordinary people to donate to causes/charities while getting involved in tax avoidance/evasion schemes.

""I'd also add that champagne socialists usually have double standards, like certain Labour MP's who choose to send their kids to private schools whilst extolling the virtues of state school.""

That has been said again and again, bit alongside the Labour MPs are trying to improve the outcomes for the children going to state schools and who are disadvantaged.

We need well educated people who believe in social justice.

It doesn't mean that they have to have the same living standards as the people that they are fighting for justice for.

Unless you think that when the UK and the public was against apartheid we should have dropped down to living in shanty towns.

Do we have to have FGM to fight against it?

YANBU OP.

I always use my vote to further the cause of the poorest in society rather than feathering my own (adequate) nest. I can't understand well-off people who vote selfishly.