Champagne socialist is a political term commonly used in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It is a popular epithet that implies a degree of hypocrisy, and it is closely related to the concept of the

liberal elite Liberal elite, also referred to as the metropolitan elite or progressive elite, is a stereotype of politically liberal people whose education has traditionally opened the doors to affluence, wealth and power and who form a managerial elite. It is ...

. The phrase is used to describe self-identified

socialists Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...

whose luxurious

upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...

or " preppy" lifestyles,

metonymically Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name ...

including consumption of

champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...

, are ostensibly in conflict with their political beliefs.

United Kingdom

The term has been used by left-wing commentators to criticise

centrist Centrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to Left-w ...

views. Some traditional left-wingers regard the first Labour

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Ramsay MacDonald as a "champagne socialist" who betrayed the

Labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

. MacDonald's lavish lifestyle and his mingling with

high society High society, sometimes simply society, is the behavior and lifestyle of people with the highest levels of wealth and social status. It includes their related affiliations, social events and practices. Upscale social clubs were open to men based ...

is supposed to have been a corrupting influence that led to the end of the Labour Government in 1931 and the eventual formation of the National Government. More recently, the epithet has been levelled at supporters of the

New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

movement which brought

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

to power in 1997. In an article about Oscar Wilde's 1891 essay " The Soul of Man under Socialism", political commentator

Will Self William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English author, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Sel ...

expressed the view that Wilde could be considered an early champagne socialist because of his aesthetic lifestyle and socialist leanings. The writer and Labour supporter John Mortimer, when accused of being a champagne socialist, said that he preferred to be thought of as "more a

Bollinger Bollinger () is a French Champagne house, a producer of sparkling wines from the Champagne region. They produce several labels of Champagne under the Bollinger name, including the vintage ''Vieilles Vignes Françaises, Grande Année'' and ''R.D. ...

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

". In the fourth series of the British television comedy ''

Absolutely Fabulous ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (also known as ''Ab Fab'') is a British television sitcom based on the ''French and Saunders'' sketch, "Modern Mother and Daughter", created by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The show was created and written by Saund ...

'', Saffron is offered a job with New Labour. While she is at pains to avoid being seen as a champagne socialist, her grandmother considers the family to be " Bolly Bolsheviks". The label has also been applied to the Labour politician Geoffrey Robinson MP on account of his large personal fortune. Singer Charlotte Church has described herself as a "prosecco socialist", referring to the increasing popularity and lower price range of non-champagne sparkling wines such as prosecco and cava. In the UK, the term is often used by critics to disparage people with a leftwing political view. This argument claims that the champagne socialist espouses leftist views while enjoying a luxurious lifestyle; one example might include Labour Party supporters who stereotypically live in

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was u ...

and consume

highbrow Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, "highbrow" is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The term, first recorded in 1875, draws its metonymy from the pseudo ...

media. This usage of the term has been criticised by Caitlin Moran as a

fallacious A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term in the Western intellectual tradition was intr ...

argument, because she claims it assumes that only those who are poor can express an opinion about

social inequality Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...

Australia and New Zealand

In Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, the variant "Chardonnay socialist" was used, as Chardonnay was seen as a drink of affluent people. By the late 1990s, chardonnay had become more readily available and generally consumed in Australia; today it is the most dominant white wine variety produced in the country. As a result, the drink's association with elitism has faded. Staunch Australian right-wingers also used the term to deride those who supported what they considered "middle-class welfare"—government funding for the

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

s, free tertiary education, and the ABC.

United States

'' Current Affairs'' ran a lighthearted article featuring a

political cartoon A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine ...

of guests at a Marxist gathering dressed in fancy attire and sipping on champagne. The central argument was that conspicuous consumption was not inherently antithetical to leftist values so long as luxuries were shared equally. As the magazine put it, "When we say

let them eat cake "Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "'", said to have been spoken in the 17th or 18th century by "a great princess" upon being told that the peasants had no bread. The French phrase mentions brioche, a bread e ...

, we are serious: there must be cake, it must be good cake, and it must be had by all. The reason Marie Antoinette needed beheading was not that she wished cake on the poor, but that she never actually gave them any." The term appears in ''Blind Alleys'', a 1906 work of fiction by the American author

George Cary Eggleston George Cary Eggleston (26 November 1839 – 14 April 1911) American author and brother of fellow author Edward Eggleston (1837–1902). Sons of Joseph Cary Eggleston and Mary Jane Craig. After the American Civil War he published a serialized ...

which distinguishes the "beer socialist" who "wants everybody to come down to his low standards of living" and the "champagne socialist" who "wants everybody to be equal on the higher plane that suits him, utterly ignoring the fact that there is not enough champagne, green turtle and truffles to go round". A 2021 article in the libertarian magazine

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...

written by Jason Brennan and Christopher Freiman derided Bernie Sanders,

Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann Warren ( née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a ...

, and political commentator

Hasan Piker Hasan Doğan Piker ( , ; born July 25, 1991), also known as HasanAbi ( abi meaning ''big brother'' in Turkish), is a Turkish-American Twitch streamer and left-wing political commentator. He has previously worked as a broadcast journalist and p ...

as so called "champagne socialists." In the article, Brennan and Freiman chide these "socialist figureheads" to "open their wallets before they open their mouths" on the basis that each had supposedly donated little of their personal wealth to causes they support, but had instead called for increased taxes. In the case of Sanders and Piker, Brennan and Freiman criticize their supposedly excessive living arrangements, while Warren is reprehended for donating only a small portion of her net worth to causes she advocates for.

Other related terms

The term is broadly similar to the American terms "

limousine liberal Limousine liberal and latte liberal are pejorative U.S. political terms used to illustrate hypocritical behavior by political liberals of upper class or upper middle class status. The label stems primarily from unwillingness of ''limousine liber ...

", " Learjet liberal", or " Hollywood liberal", and to idioms in other languages such as the Spanish '' Izquierda caviar (''Portuguese ''Esquerda Caviar)'', the French '' Gauche caviar'', the German '' Salonsozialist'', the Italian ''

Radical chic Radical chic is the fashionable practice of upper-class people associating with politically radical people and causes. Coined in the 1970 article "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's" by journalist Tom Wolfe, the term has become widely used in l ...

'', the Swedish ''Rödvinsvänster'', and Polish ''kawiorowa lewica''. Other related terms include " Hampstead liberal", "

Gucci Gucci (, ; ) is an Italian high-end luxury fashion house based in Florence, Italy. Its product lines include handbags, ready-to-wear, footwear, accessories, and home decoration; and it licenses its name and branding to Coty, Inc. for fragran ...

socialist", "

communist", "

Neiman Neiman is a surname. It may refer to: * Abraham Lincoln Neiman (1875–1970) *Carrie Marcus Neiman Carrie Marcus Neiman (May 3, 1883 – March 6, 1953) was an American businesswoman and one of the co-founders of Neiman Marcus, a luxury departme ...

Marxist", " cashmere communist", in Ireland, "

smoked salmon Smoked salmon is a preparation of salmon, typically a fillet that has been cured and hot or cold smoked. Due to its moderately high price, smoked salmon is considered a delicacy. Although the term lox is sometimes applied to smoked salmon, t ...

socialist", and in the Philippines, "

steak A steak is a thick cut of meat generally sliced across the muscle fibers, sometimes including a bone. It is normally grilled or fried. Steak can be diced, cooked in sauce, such as in steak and kidney pie, or minced and formed into patti ...

commandos."

References

External links

Dylan Jones: Card-carrying champagne socialists are looking to swap sides - but they want to do it with dignity
''The Independent''
Champagne socialist
at

The Free Dictionary ''The Free Dictionary'' is an American online dictionary and encyclopedia that aggregates information from various sources. Content The site cross-references the contents of ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', the '' ...