{"id":92211,"date":"2026-05-11T07:15:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=92211"},"modified":"2026-05-11T07:15:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:15:43","slug":"how-to-end-vilification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/05\/11\/how-to-end-vilification\/","title":{"rendered":"How to end vilification"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was amused to note an FT article yesterday<\/a> suggesting that New York\u2019s financial elite are up in arms about Zohran Mamdani\u2019s new second-home tax, imposed in that city on properties worth more than $5 million that are not used as a main residence. Apparently, the owners of these properties are \u201cfed up with being vilified\u201d.<\/p>\n

My heart does not bleed for them.<\/p>\n

Imagine being fed up with being rich. Imagine how upsetting it must be to have to pay a little more tax when, by definition, you have the capacity to do so.<\/p>\n

Then imagine what it is like to be homeless, or to be unable to afford your rent, or to pay to put food on the table for either yourself or your children, let alone pay the household bills that come in. Then imagine having to take multiple jobs to keep this oppressive and stressful existence going in a society that provides you with no other option.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s elite might be fed up with being vilified, but New York\u2019s population voted for Mamdani for one good reason, and that is that they are fed up with being exploited, abused and, in a quite literal sense, left hopeless.<\/p>\n

I can imagine myself in the position of New York\u2019s financial elite. I can also imagine myself in the position of those struggling to survive in that city, which I have visited. But when doing both those things, whilst simultaneously engaging my empathetic brain, I can only feel sympathy for those who put Mamdani into office in New York, and none at all for its financial elite.<\/p>\n

If they want to stop being vilified, I have a recommendation to make. It is that they should shut up, get on with paying their tax, and recognise their enormous good fortune, whilst praying that the rest of US society will continue to let them live in a style which nothing they can do can justify on the basis of the value that they create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was amused to note an FT article yesterday suggesting that New York\u2019s financial elite are up in arms about Zohran Mamdani\u2019s new second-home tax,
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,35,16,147,224,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-inequality","category-neoliberalism","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92212,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92211\/revisions\/92212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}