As I pointed out in yesterday's edition of Confidential Daily, if you walk through Potts Point on a Saturday morning, you'll see the contradiction that defines much of modern Australia.
Luxury apartments selling for millions. Designer dogs. European cars parked outside organic grocers. Cafés where a smashed avocado costs more than a tradie's lunch. Yet amid all this prosperity, the dominant political sentiment is often hostility towards the very system that created it.
Welcome to the curious world of the affluent progressive.
Potts Point isn't unique. Similar patterns can be found in inner-city Melbourne, parts of Brisbane, London's Notting Hill, New York's Upper West Side, San Francisco, Vancouver and countless other wealthy urban enclaves across the Western world.
The richer the neighbourhood, the more likely you'll find residents displaying signs supporting causes that almost invariably involve higher taxes, more government intervention, more regulation and more bureaucratic oversight. It's one of the great political ironies of our age.
Historically, wealthier communities tended to support lower taxes, stronger property rights and limited government. The logic was straightforward. People who had worked hard to accumulate assets wanted to keep them.
Today's urban elite often think differently. Partly because many are insulated from the consequences of the policies they support.
A millionaire who advocates for higher electricity prices in pursuit of climate goals can still afford the power bill. The family in western Sydney struggling to pay their mortgage cannot.
A professional earning $300,000 a year can absorb the cost of increased regulations, taxes and compliance burdens. A small business owner operating on tight margins may not survive them.
The wealthy progressive can support mass migration while living in an exclusive suburb with limited social housing and excellent schools. Working-class communities experiencing infrastructure strain, housing pressure and wage competition don't enjoy the same luxury.
The costs of fashionable policies are often outsourced to someone else. There is also a powerful social element at work.
In previous generations, wealth was often demonstrated through possessions. Today, among many educated professionals, moral virtue has become a status symbol. Political beliefs function as a form of social currency.
Displaying the correct opinions signals membership of the educated class. The right yard sign. The right social media post. The right causes. The right outrage. It's less about solving problems than demonstrating belonging.
This helps explain why some of the loudest advocates for "equity" live in suburbs with astronomical property prices and very little socioeconomic diversity. The rhetoric is revolutionary. The real estate portfolio is not.
Of course, not every wealthy resident thinks this way. Plenty of successful people remain sceptical of government expansion and understand that prosperity depends upon freedom, enterprise and personal responsibility.
But the broader trend is unmistakable. As societies become wealthier, many citizens become detached from the economic realities that produced their prosperity. Success begins to look automatic. Markets are taken for granted. Risk-taking is forgotten. Wealth is assumed rather than earned.
And when prosperity is treated as permanent, politics becomes a vehicle for moral expression rather than practical outcomes. The result is a peculiar alliance between privilege and progressivism: People insulated from consequences advocating policies whose consequences fall on others.
Potts Point didn't become prosperous because bureaucrats planned it into existence. It became desirable because generations of Australians built businesses, accumulated capital, protected property rights and created wealth.
That lesson is increasingly unfashionable. Yet it remains true. And reality has a habit of reasserting itself eventually.
Thought for the Day
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” – Margaret Thatcher
I’m a journalist, former politician, Christian, and campaign director for CitizenGO Australia. My mission is to challenge the media lies, government overreach, and corporate censorship that threaten our freedoms.
