In an interview with the Guardian published on Tuesday, Tom Steyer defended his immense wealth by comparing himself to multi-platinum pop star Beyoncé Knowles.
Of communism, Steyer said: “Should we put a limit on what Beyoncé makes? I don’t see why.”
“I don’t think in the United States of America we should put a ceiling on how far people can go,” he added, before explaining just where Karl Marx’s theory went wrong:
What Karl Marx failed to take into consideration was software — that if you are Michael Jackson or Rihanna or Beyoncé or anyone producing an idea, with software you aren’t just the best singer in your village … you have an ability to reproduce that song infinitely at very low cost around the world.
Marx might warrant a bit of leeway for that oversight, however, since he died over 60 years before the first theoretical concept of software was invented — and nearly a century before the king of pop was born.
Steyer then called inequality “a shame on America,” praising democratic socialist leadership from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The idea of generational wealth is not one that I subscribe to or believe in,” Steyer said. “Should we have a different tax system? Absolutely. Should resources be shared differently? Absolutely.”
Steyer announced his campaign just months after publicly announcing he would not run. He told the Guardian he was just trying to do “a smart thing… the right thing.”
“Part of it was watching that failure of government and just being so frustrated,” he said. “Literally, watching the debates and watching this campaign evolve, I thought, ‘Wow, I can’t sleep.’”
Steyer has pledged to spend $100 million promoting his run for the Oval Office, but the cash has failed to materialize into national interest. Dismal polls have already reportedly earned him a dismissal from an upcoming liberal conference.