Wealth inequality isn't just a problem for Western governments. Turns out you get it in socialist utopias too. The Burning Man festival in Nevada is supposed to be entirely commerce-free, community-focused, gift-oriented and 100% environmentally friendly. You bring everything you think you might need to survive in the desert with you. You unconditionally gift what you don't need to others. You make part of the gift your own "radical free expression". And you "leave no trace" that you have been there on your departure.
If you like the sound of that, you aren't alone: it is jammed every year. You are also out of luck. This year, says The Times, the festival turned out to be "less Glastonbury and more Gilded Age". Billionaires arrived in private jets, stayed in a fenced off "plug and play" luxury campsite (the White Ocean Camp) fully equipped with air-conditioned yurts, and ate lobster that they definitely did not get hold of in such a way as to fit with the "radical self-reliance" ethos of the festival. The result? Fury. The compound was "stormed by a band of protestors" who cut electricity cords and glued the doors of smart camper vans shut. They were, they said, taking "Burning Man back from the parasite class".
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