You may have seen Louise Mensch being needled on HIGNFY recently; if you haven’t, take a look, it’s awful and funny at once.

Mensch suggests that there’s something wrong about the Occupy LSX protestors drinking coffee from the nearby Starbucks, something which renders their position invalid. Merton & Hislop both mock this view, and get some good laughs in the process; fair enough for a comedy show but this is the internet where such things are SRS BZNS. Let’s look at what Mrs Mensch says a bit more closely, as it’s a common refrain - “look at those guardianistas, smashing their system on their iPhones”, hilarity and dismissal ensue.

The argument here is one of hypocrisy, that lattes etc. are fruits of the economic system, and their consumption implies and depends upon supporting it. The protestors should be ignored because they are hypocrites (the cardinal modern sin), saying one thing and acting in contradiction. Let’s consider what is needed for this critique to hold up:

1. The protestors believe they ought to be able to have a coffee
2. The protestors take issue with the skewed wealth distribution and other current inequalities.
3. (MH) Said wealth distribution is necessarily implied by the availability of a coffee. 
4. Thus, the protestors’ actions (1) contradict their complaints (2) - they are not walking the walk.

From this we have the Mensch Hypothesis of capitalism: there can be no economy in which a coffee may be bought for a low price in which executive remuneration does not double every couple of years. No lattes may be had without the top 1% holding a radically disproportionate fraction of the wealth (and thus power). To shave even a single pound from the pension of Fred Goodwin or the salary of Bob Diamond would octuple the price of espresso, in all possible worlds.