The Obamas should not be criticised for making money. They're former politicians, not saints

The chief knock on them is not that they’ve been making money, but that they’re making too much

Criticism of the Obamas is along the lines of 'It’s ok to get rich. Just not too rich' (Getty)

Michelle Obama has become a rock star without playing a single note.

She’s generated, what the Washington Post has described as, “Beyoncé-level sales” for the tour she’s embarking upon to promote her memoir Becoming – and she’s done it with Beyoncé-style pricing.

You’ll pay well over $100 for seats in the eyries of the basketball arenas that will play host to what is billed as “an intimate conversation” with the former US First Lady.

If you want to actually see her, other than with a pair of binoculars, you’ll likely have to shell out for one of the VIP packages: They run to $3,000.

Such numbers have, inevitably, attracted negative comment. So have the fees her husband, the former president Barack Obama, has netted for giving speeches. A healthcare conference organised by Cantor Fitzgerald reportedly realised a staggering $400,000 for him.

Writing for Vox, Matthew Yglesias argued that people like the Obamas, who sincerely care about the fate of the “progressive centre as a nationally and globally viable political movement” need to start “behaving with a higher degree of personal integrity than their rivals” and call time on such “buckraking”.

Bloomberg’s Francis Wilkinson agreed: “No, no, no”, he declared after writing about the pre-show photo opportunity, the reception with Michelle, the signed book, and the exclusive VIP gift item you receive with one of the $3,000 tickets for her show.

Their contention is that the Obama’s moneymaking provides a gift to “wanton right-wing populists” at a time when too many people are struggling.

Wilkinson urged them to, instead, seek a “middle way” between Bill and Hillary Clintons’ money grubbing and relative modesty of former president Jimmy Carter.

It’s ok to get rich, just not too rich.

I don’t buy the gift to the populists’ line at all. They would gun for the Obamas if they chose to move into a modest suburban home and devoted themselves entirely to charitable endeavours.

Let’s say they hired a cleaner and a gardener, who then got fired for filching from the spare cash kept in the bread bin for emergencies.

If you think that Fox News wouldn't have them on to trash their former employers in a heartbeat ("Listen to the Obamas’ former employees tell you how they’re not the saints you think they are!") you’re being naive.

This is just another example of asking the left to be held to an entirely artificial standard that no one ever asks of the right – its leaders least of all.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that every progressive agreed to adhere to it. They’d get no credit because the bar would simply be raised in response.

The current appeal of the populist right should ultimately fade as a result of the incompetence and failure of its leaders. But what might help that process along, would be for its opponents to cease allowing it to set the agenda like this, and to go out and self-confidently articulate that there is a better way.

Wilkinson’s point that the former leaders of the progressive centre, or of the left (call it what you will), should pay due regard to the struggles experienced by working people, has a little more to it, even if he chips away at it with his “get rich but not too rich” conclusion, which doesn’t make much sense.

It’s certainly true that the Clintons can be legitimately criticised for some of their activities, and so can their old mucker Tony Blair: PR-ing for a deeply unpleasant Kazakh government was not a good look.

But that’s not the case with the Obamas.

No one is being forced to pay $3,000 for an “intimate conversation” in a basketball arena.

These events are as pricey as they are because people will pay up, and because performers have woken up to the fact that if they leave money on the table, it will simply find its way into the hands of scalpers. At least a portion of Michelle Obama’s sales will go to charity, which certainly isn’t the case with Beyoncé.

As for the former president’s speech? The money Cantor paid was quite absurd. But, really, how many people would honestly pass up that sort of fee if it was put on the table?

The Obamas are former politicians. They’re not saints.

The chief knock on them is not that they’ve been making money, or that they’ve strayed into any immoral means of doing so after an exemplary period in office when it comes to their personal conduct, but that they’re making too much.

Here’s how to address the issue of the widespread unhappiness and insecurity caused by a system that reserves the fruits of economic growth solely for people in their income bracket: Tax them more.

It really is that simple. Tax them more and use the receipts to benefit those lower down the totem pole. Use it to pay for universal healthcare, free college, and other worthwhile endeavours.

I would hope that the Obamas would support such a move.

If they, and the other members of the moderate, progressive left, have a failing, it is that they were far too timid in advancing the argument for a progressive system of taxation and far too inclined to give way to the right’s economic lie that if you slash taxes for the wealthy the money will trickle down to the less well off.

In the meantime, there are former politicians who are far more deserving of criticism than them, given that the US presidency has been turned into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump organisation.