Nick French, a philosophy instructor at the University of California-Berkeley, is teaching a summer course titled "Individual Morality and Social Justice," in which he argues that wealthy people are inherently immoral, no matter what they do with their money.  They are evil even if they donate much of their wealth to worthy causes.

French, in a recent Jacobin Magazine op-ed, argued that people should "dispossess the benevolent rich of their ill-gotten gains."  You can't make this up.  Jacobins were members of a "democratic" club established in Paris in 1789.  They were the most radical and ruthless of the political groups formed in the aftermath of the French Revolution, carrying out the Terror of 1793–1794.  They "dispossessed" France's rich of their money...and their heads.  Now some academic clown named French wants to see history repeated in today's America.  The Jacobin also states that French is a member of the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America.  Well, blow me down.

The first half of French's course is dedicated to addressing "how individuals ought to live," a topic near and dear to leftists' hearts.  Then students will be expected to analyze "the justice of social arrangements."  They will also face questions such as "What makes an action right or wrong, good or bad?"  Duh.  An action is "right" or "good" when it is in keeping with how French thinks one "ought to live."  It is "wrong" or "bad" when it isn't.

In his Jacobin op-ed, called "Even Nice, 'Generous' Rich People Are Not Your Friends," French states: "Rich people love to give away money for charitable causes to convince you that they're not so bad after all.  Don't be fooled: we need to dispossess the benevolent rich of their ill-gotten gains, too."  So, simply having money makes you, by default — no questions asked, no dissent brooked — a "bad" person?  That's an intolerant, bigoted, money-shaming generalization, is it not?

The Jacobin wannabe philosophy professor purports to believe that capitalists are predisposed to be "socially destructive" due to their exalted "position in the economic structure."  French flatly states: "Bernie Sanders is right.  We need to build a mass movement powerful enough to take on the millionaires and billionaires, so we can take control of socially created wealth and subject it to public, democratic control.  Then we can start to solve the problems that the rich can't."  Historically, this has been a recipe for complete disaster, and it is so yet today.  Socialist nations like Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba can't even feed their own citizens.  They are tragically short on medicines.  Even potable water is in short supply.  And the only millionaires are at the head of the governments — governments assuredly not of, by, and for the people, despite what the regimes' nomenclature might imply.

Mr. French avers that "the very existence of capitalists" creates the problems of poverty, disease, and "other social ills."  Actually, the existence and rise of capitalism lifted untold millions — if not billions — out of poverty and disease, leading the world as a whole to take a 5,000-Year Leap forward.

French wrote, "We don't need the wealthy, just their wealth."  Say again?  How does French suggest we confiscate the wealth of the wealthy...if there are no wealthy?

It is ironic that he doesn't care for those who he claims care only about money and not people — and surpassingly hypocritical that he wants to take their money.

To paraphrase an old pop/rock song by Ten Years After: Tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no rich no more?  Tell me, where is the sanity?