In my experience, people who criticize this article are probably benefiting from "capitalism" (the majority of people on here, I reckon, do), meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues.<p>That being said, capitalism and having things like free healthcare and education are hardly mutually exclusive. So I think the article's conclusion, "In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy...", (more the poll) are a bit misleading.<p>Here's the actual poll, by the way:<p><a href="http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/" rel="nofollow">http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publ...</a><p>Thanks to twblalock for including the recent poll:<p><a href="http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po.." rel="nofollow">http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po...</a>.
This article is a lot of fluff. It opens with a survey that finds a majority of millenials do not agree with capitalism.<p>Then it tempers that with the acknowledgement that "capitalism means different things to different people" and that it's unclear if respondents favor another system more, or just don't support anything.<p>Finally, it sort of meanders around with different people weighing in on what this might mean or what the cause could be.<p>Nothing really...happened here. It would be nice to see an article (or survey) that does a few things better than this:<p>1. Engages with both the material and millenials in an intellectually satisfying and nuanced way. Millenials are spoken about here not as members of the conversation, but as specimens. Furthermore, there's frankly not a lot of rigor in figuring out why millenials might not approve of capitalism other than the garden variety "first-pass" analyses you can read elsewhere.<p>2. Establishes greater rigor in both terminology and discovery. Maybe "capitalism" should have been defined more rigorously in the study. Maybe questions should have been less leading and asked about alternatives if capitalism is not satisfactory to the respondents.<p>3. Attempts to develop real conclusions instead of polarizing ones. Maybe the survey shouldn't have asked about "capitalism" at all, but instead asked about specific policies in a bipartisan manner. Avoiding the difficulties that make mistakes in my #2 point would be a significant improvement.<p>In fact, at this point I'm not sure if the goal was to honestly engage with the material or millenials at all at this point, or if there is an agenda for pushing out articles that paint huge demographics with such a broad brush. I don't <i>like</i> feeling that way or questioning this, but it doesn't feel like a real attempt was made here. I honestly left this piece without being able to make any real conclusions. I'm a millenial myself, so take that for what it's worth.
The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric, and more people are seeing merit of using blends of governance than pure free market. People 50 years ago had to support one system of face real consequences.<p>We can now debate the merit of concepts like "privatise luxury, socialise necessity" without being a 'commie bastard'. With the irony being socialist policy was far more in place and accepted 60 years ago when people were so anti-Russia and communism/socialism.<p>I really hope nations leaders can hear this because if they keep pushing people down with income disparity, access to a reasonable living and opportunity the pressure will build up for a bigger push-back, and potentially something dangerous if driven by anger/desperation rather than a common will to succeed.<p>I feel this is one of many strengths of democracy where it should allow pressure values to pop safely and society realign much earlier and easily than other government styles.
I think the rub is that the public debate confuses the triumph of the old British system of aristocracy and privilege with "capitalism". Just as they had the "corn laws" in the early 19th century, we have pharmaceutical import bans, region coding, the "dutch sandwich" and many many other <i>privileges</i> to keep the winners winning with a minimum of effort.<p>If that's what passes for capitalism, who wouldn't reject it?<p>People spend too much time debating economic systems when the fundamental problem is a public neglect of equal justice under the law.
Yes, because a society based on Marxism will be <i>so much better</i>. Because that is the big idea right? Marxism?<p>But these millenials who seem to think they are all smarter than everybody else forget one thing: of all the things we tried capitalism and democracy are the <i>least destructive</i> forms of governing society.<p>Or as Jordan Peterson, a tenured psychologist, has stated several times already: "Those who claim 'With us this time it (Marxism) will become so much better' have no idea what they are talking about"
So, what they really mean is that they want less globalization... rather then less capitalism... and we know many older voters also voted for less globalization... so it's like both young and old, stung by globalization and financial crises want to retrench?
This is like those surveys that show a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare, but a majority favor almost all of the individual policies that comprise Obamacare when the word "Obamacare" does not appear in the survey.<p>What I would like to see is a survey that asks people their opinions on certain characteristics of capitalism, without mentioning the word "capitalism." I think the results would be very different.
<i>Arise ye prisoners of starvation! Arise ye wretched of the Earth. For justice thunders condemnation, a better world in birth.</i><p>I mean, sure, most Millenials probably equate capitalism with neoliberalism and socialism with social-democracy, but hey, given that interpretation, yeah, neoliberalism has ruined quite a lot of our lives.
Most people do not even understand what capitalism is thanks to the term becoming conflated with greed. And as the poll shows, not supporting capitalism doesn't mean supporting socialism.
Issues it would be helpful to unbundle when talking about capitalism:<p>Contract law. "Capitalism" here usually means private voluntary agreements are very sacred or absolutely sacred.<p>Property law. "Capitalism" here usually means a rule of first possession.<p>Tax law. "Capitalism" here usually means a presumption against taxation, especially if redistributive in purpose.<p>Limited liability. "Capitalism" here usually means possibility of absentee investors.<p>Fiduciary duties. "Capitalism" here usually means duty to maximize shareholders' economic value.<p>Antitrust law. "Capitalism" here, as term is used by self-perceived opponents, usually refers to corporate bigness.<p>Etc.<p>Was Thomas Jefferson capitalist? He hated bigness in all forms.<p>Was Thomas Paine capitalist? He thought rule of first possession was useful because easy to administer but proposed something akin to universal basic income.<p>Important to be clear, as many others have noted in the comments.
The problem with whishing for socialism in a divided democracy is that the owners will align with any dictator available to keep what they gained. So higher taxation and redistribution within legal boundaries is discussable. Disowning is destroying the democracy and a sure way to start a civill war.
I don't think this is anything particularly new. There's a pretty old saying (that is constantly mis-attributed[1]):<p>> If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.<p>Within a capitalist society, young people on the whole have less, but have to work for everything. After a decade or two working to earn stuff, you feel like other people should do that too. You can chase the reasons why down a million psychological rabbit holes.<p>That said, there's no reason why this would not be <i>more true</i> now than it ever has been before. Adjusting for inflation, we're paid the same as our parents but houses and rent is 10× what it was for them. (At least in the UK) the post-war decade-long housing boom flooded the market with cheap but good stock. Councils used to build for their own social care, and these eventually went on the market too. Now we only get mega-developers holding land until they get approval for high-density crappy houses.<p>That's a very distinct shift from socialised building projects to capitalist building. And it's skewed our entire economy, and really hobbles anybody on a lower income without a house to inherit.<p>[1]: <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/" rel="nofollow">http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/</a>
Capitalism per se isn't wrong, but becomes extremely dangerous if left uncontrolled as it is today. What is <i>very</i> wrong and dangerous with capitalism is the lack of a line dictating when an entity should stop amassing power and wealth, especially when limited resources are involved. You can print infinite money but you can't create infinite land as the planet surface isn't infinite, which one day will lead us to the point when a few extremely rich people will own the entire Earth surface.
Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the lives and wellbeings of others.<p>if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to hear how!
Sure they reject capitalism when they are asked, but will gladly buy an iPhone or other consumer electronics designed to fail within a few years of normal usage.<p>They will gladly post all their private information to Facebook for that warm fuzzy feeling of people liking their updates, while they are being datamined and their profiling sold to advertisers.<p>But when asked, then sure everyone is against capitalism.
This article seems to be based on a small sample size. As an anecdotal evidence, most millenials that I've met (I'm 29) are very pro-capitalism but are liberals.
In 2017 you should not mix the two - you can have a capitalist economy that provides universal healthcare and education, and eventually even UBI.
Millennials are thinking Capitalism is a hindrance to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs</a>
Like most arguments about "isms" that do not have a single, rigorous definition accepted by everybody, debates about "capitalism" are pretty useless.<p>Karl Marx means one thing by the word, Ayn Rand means another, most other people in between have other ideas (or vague fuzzy feelings) about it, and yet everybody talks as if their own idea matches someone else's.
Did we not learn that Capitalism failed a long time ago? Why else will we have an Insurance system that is deeply incentivized to not cover your conditions? Why else will we have an Education system that is deeply incentivized to profit off your education and put you in debt for your life?