AOC claims extreme wealth in America is ‘unearned’ — and says billionaires create myths to justify their fortunes

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is taking purpose astatine 1 of America's astir enduring beliefs: that utmost wealthiness is simply the effect of utmost hard work.

During an quality connected Ilana Glazer's It's Open podcast, the New York congresswoman argued that America's economical strategy has created a motivation communicative astir wealthiness — 1 that glorifies those astatine the apical portion looking down connected those struggling astatine the bottom.

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"When you person these systems, erstwhile you person corporations, erstwhile you person an economical elite, there's a definite level of wealthiness and accumulation that is unearned," Ocasio-Cortez said (1).

Then she enactment it much bluntly.

"You can't gain a cardinal dollars," she said. "You conscionable can't gain that."

Ocasio-Cortez argued that billion-dollar fortunes are not simply a merchandise of hard enactment oregon talent, but tin travel from powerfulness imbalances baked into the economy.

"You tin get marketplace power, you tin interruption rules, you tin bash each sorts of things," she said. "You tin maltreatment labour laws — you tin wage radical little than what they're worthy — but you can't gain that."

And erstwhile utmost wealthiness cannot beryllium justified connected effort alone, she argued, the ultra-rich builds a communicative astir it.

"And truthful you person to make a myth," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Since you didn't gain that, you person to make a story of earning it."

That "myth," successful her telling, does much than support the wealthy. It besides shapes however mean workers spot themselves and each other.

"We've benignant of internalized this moralized system," she said. "The radical astatine the apical are smarter, better, much blase — and truthful the radical astatine the bottommost are uneducated, lazy, etc."

It's a sweeping critique — and 1 that sparked a immense question of reaction. Critics reason that billionaires tin make tremendous wealthiness by gathering companies, taking risks, processing products and services radical usage and creating jobs on the way.

Sen. Ted Cruz, for one, pushed backmost connected Ocasio-Cortez's assertion that billionaires can't gain their fortunes.

"Think of Henry Ford, who invented the Model T, who invented the assembly enactment and fundamentally created the American mediate class, you don't deliberation that produced billions of dollars?" Cruz said (2). "Look astatine Elon Musk, making electrical cars, making self-driving cars, sending rocket ships to the satellite — he's going to beryllium sending rocket ships to Mars."