Photo by McKenna Schueler
The graffiti is back on Mills Avenue
A construction site along Mills Avenue in Orlando saw the return of “Eat the Rich” graffiti this weekend, after the same message was displayed and quickly painted over just a week ago.
The new graffiti, visible as of Monday morning, is located on construction boarding outside the future site of a Team Market Group restaurant next to local alternative music venue Grumpy’s Underground. In between the letters, smaller lettering spells out an attribution to artist Banksy, who has used the anarchist slogan in his street art.
The message first popped up on the site earlier this month, Orlando Weekly reported Jan. 8. The initial graffiti, referred to by some online as a “mural,” was painted over within 48 hours after publication of our initial story.
“Eat the Rich” is a centuries-old phrase dating back to periods of mass starvation and inequality affiliated with the French Revolution. The slogan itself is attributed to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who said, “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
The phrase has since been recycled in the U.S. as a rallying cry against income inequality, capitalism, and the hoarding of wealth by the top 1 percent of profiteering companies, individuals and corporations — at the expense of the social and economic wellbeing of the other 99 percent.
The message couldn’t be more timely: High-profile billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have gone out of their way to court U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican billionaire elected to a second term in the White House last November. Trump was officially sworn into office as U.S. President Monday.
Musk, who’s also executive chairman of social media platform X, has even been tapped by Trump to lead a new federal agency Trump proposed post-election, dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and former Republican presidential candidate, was also tapped by Trump to head the currently nonexistent DOGE. According to Politico, Ramaswamy has already reportedly jumped ship from the hazy concept of a plan of a job in order to instead launch a run for Ohio governor.
Granted, it’s unclear what the target of the Orlando-based graffiti is mean to be: Team Market Group, known for its high-priced culinary endeavors in the Orlando area; or a broader protest of wealthy individuals and corporations. Or perhaps it’s something else — Orlando Weekly hasn’t heard from (or of) any artist stepping forward to reveal their inspiration.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, wages for the top 1 percent of U.S. income earners skyrocketed nearly 182 percent from 1979 to 2023, compared to a growth of 43.7 percent for the bottom 90 percent. CEO pay growth in recent decades has similarly towered over that for the average worker, with top CEO compensation rising 1,085 percent from 1978 to 2023, compared with a 24 percent increase in pay for a typical worker.
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