Socialism (1) Choice

Many opinion polls are reporting that young Americans would welcome socialism. This disturbs many Christians, but I am not surprised by this preference.

Young Americans are not rejecting free market-capitalism. They are waking up that the government-supported corporatism that dominates the US economy is not nice, although it is often called free-market capitalism. They are rejecting a system that they don’t like, not a system that they don’t know. The US economic system is so far from textbook free-market capitalism that they learned in their civics classes that they do not know what it would look like if it existed.

Young people look at their existing economic system, and they do not like it. They dislike the way that rich people are getting much richer and they hate the way that the weak are being impoverished and realise something is wrong. They have been taught that the American economic system is free-market capitalism, even though it is not, so they reject it and start looking for something better.

The American system is actually a combination of corporatism and oligarchy, but because they have been told it is free-market capitalism, they naturally oppose the latter. They have also been taught that the only alternative to free-market capitalism is socialism, so it is natural that they prefer socialism, because it cannot be worse than the dreadful system they have now.

Young Americans don’t know what free-market capitalism looks like, because they have not seen it. All they know is they do not like the dreadful system that has emerged in its place in America. They want something better, but they assume that the only option is socialism.

I am not surprised that young Americans feel an inclination towards socialism, because the system that is currently called a free-market system is an ugly misrepresentation of it. It is just an expression of dislike for the existing system. They want something much better, and socialism is the only option that offers that.