For the last three years I have been developing a theory about the left’s “activism” culture. But I have failed miserably to come up with a catchy title for the whole thing.

Thank you, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). You are a champ!

I am here to say that the whole culture of left-wing “activism,” starting not later than Marx and Engels, is a “Spartacus Illusion,” the fantasy -- or conceit, or outright lie -- of little lefty rich kids from the ruling class thinking they are slaves taking it to The Man.

When a United States senator, protected by Capitol Hill police, says “I am Spartacus” he is delusional. When Good Little Liberal Girls get up in Handmaid’s Tale cosplay outfits they are not sex-slaves of the ruling class: they are the ruling class.

(Hey Handmaid girls! Have you ever thought that the sexual revolution plus abortion plus no-fault divorce plus hook-up culture has made you into sex-slaves? Didn’t think you had.)

As Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman: Everything she writes is a lie, including “and” and “the.” I know this is true because I once went to a performance of Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine,” at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, no less. McCarthy has it exactly right. About “and” and “the.”

Everything the left says is a lie, including “I am Spartacus.”

It started with Marx and Engels declaring that heaven for the workers would be the government owning the means of production. Yeah, right. It led to poverty and starvation every time it was tried. Marxism is not justice, it is neo-slavery.

It continued with the Brit-kid Fabians and their plan for a welfare state. I don’t know what you call a state that spends 40-50 percent of GDP on government programs. The welfare state is not freedom from want, it is neo-feudalism.

Then the Frankfurt School rich kids came up with the cool idea to organize women and minorities in fake tribes all the better to divide and conquer the peoples of democratic capitalist states. Identity politics is not emancipation, it is neo-tribalism.

And don’t get me started on the Sixties Kidz and the “Resistance.”

The lefties call this progress. Or bending the arc of history. I call it the Great Reaction.

(By the way, the straight scoop on little rich kids is still War and Peace. Yeah. Poor little rich kid Pierre Besukhov. But at least Besukhov was shy and mild-mannered. And he got the girl.)

While all these rich kids have been acting out with their activism and their “I am Spartacus” delusions the market economy, unheralded and unplanned, merely increased real per capita income by 30 times in 200 years. I showed a nice liberal lady my Great Enrichment page the other day. She had no idea. How come, NPR and New York Times? How come nice liberal ladies have no idea about the most important fact of our time?

Hey I know! How about a Ken Burns documentary series on PBS featuring Ms. Great Enrichment herself, Deirdre McCloskey, taking the part of Shelby Foote. McCloskey is transgender so we could pile on anyone that criticized her and get xem thrown off social media as transphobic!  Whaddya say, Zuck’n’Jack?

Let me lay it to you straight, lefties.

When your side figures it can make a mockery of a U.S. Senate hearing, complete with staged “protests” from the back row and Spartacus moments from an elected senator, it means you are the ruling class. Republicans would never dare do such a thing.

When your side treats the assault on a government office, like ICE in Portlandia, OR, as a minor peccadillo, it means that your side is the ruling class. Imagine the panic if some alt-right tiki-torchers tried that with You Know Who at 8th Avenue and 42nd Street! Anonymous would be the least of it.

When a former President of the United States stands next to the most notorious racists in the USA at a celebrity funeral, it means that those racists are tolerated -- nudge-nudge, wink-wink, know what I mean -- by the ruling class.  Imagine any former president ever standing next to David Duke.

When Good Little Girls are showing up all over with cutesy-wootesy protest signs just like they were taught in Activism class, they are not speaking truth to power. The are rich kids strutting the latest fashion.

Real protest is the Captain Swing rioters in Britain in 1820 smashing the threshing machines that were taking away their livelihood. And nobody cared.

Real protest is the protesters you never hear about in Venezuela protesting against starvation. ‘Cos nobody cares.

Here is how to tell real protest from fake protest. The real thing is reactive, far too late, unheralded, the last futile punches of a punch-drunk boxer, And nobody cares.

Kinda like the original Spartacus Rebellion.

As opposed to the fake one, starring Cory Booker as Kirk Douglas.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.