I realize that as far as left-wingers are concerned, it’s a combination of criminal and sinful that some people make more money than other people. Sometimes a great deal more money.

People like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren seem to believe that by repeatedly pointing out this basic fact of life, they’re planting their flag on Mount Moral Superiority. The truth, though, is that they’re only attempting to pass off envy as political policy.

I mean, they might as well insist that laws should be enacted that establish intelligence equality or personality equality or good looks equality or character equality or even good luck equality. And, why don’t they? It’s because all it ever comes down to with socialists, starting with the truly deplorable Karl Marx, is money.

They may try to gussy it up by talking about workers’ rights or even dragging Jesus Christ into the dialogue, but as the master of ceremonies in “Cabaret” put it, it’s all about “money, money, money.”

Still, you would imagine that since their entire focus is on cash, they would know a few basic things about the subject. For instance, one of their favorite complaints is that corporate CEOs make a hundred or even a thousand times as much as one of the guys working on the assembly line, and that, come the revolution, he will be lined up against the wall and executed by a firing squad for his greed.

But let us assume that there are 20,000 factory workers collecting a weekly paycheck from the corporation and their average pay is $50,000-a-year. And let us also assume that the guy whose future involves that firing squad is pulling down $10 million a year. That would work out to 200 times as much as the guy tightening the bolts on the widget.

But, now let’s say the CEO loved his job so much and was so enthusiastic about widgets that he offered to do the job for free.

That would mean the corporation would have an additional $10 million to spend on wages. Those who mastered fourth grade math would see that his sacrifice would mean that every bolt-tightener on the assembly line would see his annual salary rise to $50,500. I’m not saying he’d mind the additional $9.62-a-week, minus taxes, in his pay envelope, but would it really be worth waging a revolution over?

When people start hollering about income inequality, it has little or nothing to do with money. It’s all about envy. A sizable segment of the American population has been raised to believe that whatever anyone else has is rightfully theirs. It doesn’t matter to them if the billionaire had more brains and more drive than they possess, was willing to dedicate himself or herself to pursuing a dream while the envious ones frittered away their time with childish amusements or addictions to drugs, booze, tattoos and their electronic gadgets.

For the envious, there can be no logical reason that others are richer, happier or even more attractive than they are; such blatant inequalities can only be the result of a corrupt system. If they happen to be a member of one of those identity groups that the Democrats are always pandering to, such as blacks, Hispanics, single women, homosexuals, transgenders, college snowflakes, feminists or Muslims, it doesn’t take much to convince them that the only thing standing between them and living like pashas are white, male, Christians who want to keep all the goodies for themselves.

Perhaps the most blatant hypocrisy in this area can be found in Hollywood. Some of the loudest voices raised on behalf of leveling out the economic playing field belong to ignoramuses like Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Samuel Jackson, Jane Fonda, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Ashley Judd and the Sheens, Martin and Charlie.

For openers, these are people who have made tens of millions of dollars doing nothing more demanding than speaking lines others have written for them, while wearing clothes others have picked out for them and wearing makeup others have applied. But they never pass up the opportunity to bad-mouth business executives who don’t, as a rule, make nearly as much money as they do, despite being brighter and working longer hours and many more days.

The hypocrisy was brought home for me about 10 years ago when I happened to see an ad in Variety. One of the most successful of TV’s writer-producers was looking for a personal assistant. Such a person would typically have a 16-hour workday that might involve driving the boss or his wife to the airport, babysitting their kids, picking up the dry cleaning, keeping the cars gassed-up and washed, delivering scripts across town, making lunch and dinner reservations, etc. They call them go-fers because they are constantly on the go, doing all the tedious tasks that writer-producers don’t want to bother with because they have far more important things to do, such as getting some moronic sit com written, produced and on the air.

In any case, the job would pay $75-a-week. At the same time, according to Forbes, the cheapskate who placed the ad was making just over $50 million-a-year. In other words, if he were one of those evil CEOs, his own compensation would have been 13,000 times as much as the go-fer on the assembly line. And no doubt he’d be screaming for the CEO’s head on a pike!

Perhaps it’s because I’m old, and well-intentioned people might suspect I’m unaware of that fact, that they keep sending me reminders. I don’t mind, though, because it means I’m not the only person who reads these lists, nods and says, “Sounds right.”

For instance: “My goal for 2017 was to lose 10 pounds. Just 15 more to go.” Or: “I just did a week’s worth of cardio after walking into a spider web.” Or: “Kids today don’t know how easy they have it. When I was young, I had to walk through nine feet of shag carpet to change the channel.” Or: “I may not be that funny or athletic or good-looking or smart or talented…I forget where I was going with this.” Or: “A thief broke into my house last night and started searching for money, so I got out of bed and helped him search.”

For my part, I have found that even at my advanced age, I am as adept as I ever was when it comes to multi-tasking. Translated, that means I can walk and step into a wad of chewing gum at the same time.