From each according to his abilities

Tales from the New Gilded Age:

Last week, childlike Business Insider boss Henry Blodget publicly bemoaned the fact that a fancy New York restaurant employs bathroom attendants. Now, Henry’s dream has come true: the bathroom attendants are all getting fired. Great . . .

Thus, Henry Blodget, a millionaire, has successfully convinced Keith McNally, a millionaire, to fire several low-wage employees, in order to avoid any potential inconvenience to Balthazar-dining millionaires in the future.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand several people who probably don’t have the option of becoming the publishers of crappy internet publications or hedge fund managers are now unemployed. On the other, the jobs they lost consist of quasi-feudal make-work that wouldn’t exist in any tolerably egalitarian society, whose primary function is to make the Masters of the Universe feel more potent than the ED pills they wash down with bottle service champagne.