Nah its a means of guilt avoidance for people who are privileged but never really worked for it. A way for rich people to revolt against the establishment without really revolting.
But so what? Would you rather these people just be cnuts instead? I'm not massively up on the history of the term, but I personally see it more vaguely as "anyone with socialist principles whose lifestyle is comfortable enough to not be affected by the injustices they criticise"...Which could easily apply to loads of people. I agree with Brand on the housing crisis for example, but I also own a flat. Is it better that I disagree with him? To avoid meaningless rebellion?
As I've mentioned a few times in this thread, some of the biggest Socialists in history were priviledged. In fact a big reason why they were taken so seriously is precisely because they were. Marx never suffered like the workers he wrote about. Tony Benn was the son of a Lord, the most privileged you can be shy of Royalty.
To undermine them despite the basic decency of the ideas, seems like a petty way of being snide about people even when they have good intentions.
Its very easy to tell people not to vote for example when your life wont be impacted in any way shape or form by the make up of the government.
Presuming you're talking about Brand? Ignoring that I completely disagree with his voting agenda anyway, any kind of soapboxing is easy. "Putting the world to rights in the pub" is easy. Much easier than opening it up to National scrutiny in fact. But what's even easier is derisorily dismissing things based on who said them, and then doing feck all about it.
I might be completely misinterpreting you (and sorry if so) But you seem to imply that this kind of consequenceless pub shit-shooting that "everybody does" is a better use of time than
actually trying to make a difference with it. Which seems like a weird kind of inverted snobbery. "
Pfft, me an Phill chat about this shit all the time, but neither of us are big enough pricks to actually try and DO anything about it!"
And as for Brand. Considering he was a working class drug addict for a sizeable part of his life, I can't see how he'd fall under your definition of Champagne Socialism anyway. Unless "worked for it" applies strictly to back breaking manual labour.