Millennials embrace socialism but can't define it

By Roger McKinney, Contributor| Thursday, August 05, 2021

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As a Boomer, I thought socialism died in its 1989 collapse in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. I was wrong. Based on the popularity of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other self-proclaimed socialists, the philosophy has climbed out of its grave and stalks the country with the popularity of zombie apocalypse movies.

Or does it? Apparently, the “socialism” that Millennials and Zoomers (Generation Z) crave isn’t the same as that of the old USSR. What is it? Well, Millennials and Zoomers don’t know, according to a survey by the Institute of Economic Affairs. They conducted the survey in the UK, but I would guess the results would translate well to the US as well.

The survey gave people under 40 years of age these definitions: A) “An economic system whereby business, trade and industry is mostly run and owned privately for profit. Prices and wages are determined mainly by competition in a free market,” and, B) “An economic system whereby business, trade and industry is mostly run and owned by the government. Prices and wages are determined mainly by the government.” 

Unfortunately, half of Millennials surveyed could not identify which definition referred to capitalism or socialism or they assigned the socialist definition to capitalism and the capitalist definition to socialism. For Democrats, A is capitalism and B is socialism. 

“When asked the same questions, Zoomers did even worse. On the fundamental divide in political ideology of the last 150 years, the generations that have had the greatest access to higher education did about as well as a dart-throwing chimp.

“The poll revealed further signs of confusion. Most of the respondents agreed with the statement that ‘capitalism heightens racism’ but also agreed that ‘racism is independent of the economic system’. They simultaneously claimed to want to pay ‘more tax to pay for public services’ but also wanted to pay ‘less tax, because the government will not spend it wisely’.”

Institute of Economic Affairs

So, what are they promoting?  According to the poll, “Millennials and Zoomers associated socialism with words like ‘equal’, ‘fair’ and ‘people’ while they associated capitalism with ‘exploitation’, ‘unfair’ and ‘corporations’.” In other words, both groups lump socialism with good feelings and capitalism with bad ones. 

Unfortunately, they get those backwards as well. Godly theologians distilled the principles of capitalism from the Bible during the Reformation. They began with the commandments “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not covet” and tried to figure out how those would apply to government because for millennia governments and the nobility had stolen from the common people with impunity. They determined that the Biblical commands require: 1) A government limited to taxing the people only enough to perform its God-given duty of punishing evil doers who violate individual rights to life, liberty and property; and 2) A government that treats all citizens equally so that the nobility must obey the law as well as the common people. 

Also, they had to define property. They decided that the chief characteristic of property is that the owner controls it and can dispose of it as he wishes. So property requires free markets. As a bonus, free markets settled the problem of determining a just price. Theologians had kicked around the Aristotelian concept of a just price for a thousand years. In the Reformation they decided that the closest humans can come to it is that price determined in a free market. 

The Dutch Republic first implemented capitalist principles in the 17th century and became the first capitalist nation. As a result, it launched the Industrial Revolution, or what some economists call the great enrichment, in the West. You can see the results in this graph of the history of per capita GDP, another term for standards of living. Another way of viewing it is that the higher the lines on the graph rise, the lower poverty falls. 

If Zoomers and Millennials really care about ending poverty or promoting equality and fairness, they will promote capitalism. Capitalism has always and everywhere reduced poverty where it has been tried. Socialism has only impoverished every society it afflicted. 

Millennials Want The Big State To Fix Problems Which It Caused

Source: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

We free marketeers are talking past millennial socialists. We tend to replay old film footage of the horrors of the USSR, China under Mao, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, hoping to frighten them out of their puppy love with socialism. Millennials respond by saying they don’t want to repeat any of those disasters; all they want is for the rich to share their wealth with others, like the Nordic countries. It won’t lead to tyranny. What’s wrong with that?

Some millennials find just the existence of billionaires disgusting and want to euthanize the class. Those whom envy consumes I can only recommend that they learn to love their rich neighbor as they love themselves. Those who think that billionaires have caused poverty by taking from the poor need to learn real economics.

Socialist Eat Their Young

It’s well known that “millennials” prefer socialism to capitalism. That doesn’t worry me, though. Someone said that if you aren’t a socialist when you’re young you don’t have a heart; if you’re not a capitalist when you age you have no head.

Most young people think they can transfer the morality of the family to the nation and it takes a while for them to understand the fallacy, if they ever do. A lot of PhD economists haven’t caught on.

The public school system has taught them “milk cow” economics for twelve years that says socialism is about sharing and caring while capitalism is nothing but greed. Who would want to identify with capitalism after a dozen years of such brainwashing?

But the main reason millennials oppose capitalism is that they can see how the student debt problem, lack of jobs, slow wage growth, etc. assault them, while the media, economists and conservative politicians chant daily that this is a capitalist system. Why wouldn’t they hate capitalism?

Young people are socialist for a reason

Young people drove Bernie Sanders' campaign and near upset of the establishment Hillary Clinton in the latest election to the surprise of many.

An old saying goes, “If you’re not a socialist when you’re young you have no heart; if you’re still a socialist when you’re older you have no brain.”

Socialism comes naturally to humanity. Hayek thought that family life was partly to blame. Good moms and dads take care of the children, provide food and security, and distribute those equally among the children. Children get very upset when they think one sibling receives more of anything than the rest or enjoys special treatment.

Then we leave the safety of the home. venture into a more public sphere in school and we carry our family morality with us. We think school should function like a larger family with the teachers and principal substituting for mom and dad and it does that the most part. Eventually we get a job, but we still view the larger society and politics through the glasses of our family morality. The political elite, especially the President, becomes the “father” of the nation who should make certain that the benefits of his regime are evenly distributed and no one gets special treatment.

Hayek points out that the danger of such thinking lies in the fact that in the family we know everyone well. Even in larger groupings, such as school or a tribe, we are still familiar with most people and know their circumstances. But a nation is so large that citizens know only a tiny portion of the population and are dealing with strangers much of the time, especially in business. Transactions with strangers who don’t have your welfare in mind as mom and dad did require different rules of engagement. Treating family members as if they were strangers would destroy families just as using family values in dealing with strangers will destroy society.