
A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows - alphonsegaston
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?postshare=6201488310112857&tid=ss_tw
======
tabeth
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.

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.

Here's the actual poll, by the way:

[http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-
publ...](http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-
response-to-capitalism-socialism/)

Thanks to twblalock for including the recent poll:

[http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-
spring-2016-po...](http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-
spring-2016-po..).

~~~
dnautics
alright. I'll bite. I have made almost no money in the past year, and my bank
account is nearly zero. I had a relatively middle class upbringing (but for
reasons I'd rather not go into) my family is currently bankrupt.

Capitalism (in the free markets sense) is great. The problem is that gobs of
money are stolen from poor people like me by the government through various
processes, the biggest of which is inflation. This money is largely
redistributed to cronies - the easiest of which to see are the big
contractors. Less obvious are the banks and directly profit off of low-
interest loans by flipping them to higher-interest borrowers, and even less
obvious is wall street (whose coffers are filled by middle class people pushed
into protecting their assets from inflation).

This is Capital-ism (in the marxian sense) -- the philosophy deciding that the
pursuit of capital is a good unto itself. Unfortunately, the state has decided
to attempt to 'harness' capitalism for its own idea of 'social good' which of
course basically taints the non-zero-sum nature of free exchange with the
zero-sum game of political hierarchy. The more this happens, the greater there
will be inequality. It's a direct consequence of the first principles, and is
unavoidable.

~~~
oconnore
If you have a bank account of almost zero, inflation can't possibly be
stealing money from you (unless you also have gobs of cash under a mattress
somewhere).

~~~
rocky1138
Except that the prices of everything rise every year.

~~~
dakrootie
Everything?

True, some prices have risen. But, if I may, here are some fun equations to
ponder.

1996 (Florida)

Minimum wage $4.25 Gallon of milk $2.73 Gallon of gas $1.26 Dozen eggs $1.31

2017 Minimum wage $8.10 Gallon of milk $3.31 Gallon of gas $2.41(was almost
$4.00, if I remember correctly a few years ago?) Dozen eggs $1.59

1996

Electronics (to do work, using one's natural talents, for example) Expensive.

2017 Electronics: Much cheaper. Adjusting for inflation: much, much cheaper.

Of course, with electronics, there are too many intricacies to list, but
here's a specific one. I bought a 512MB compact flash card in 2001, which set
me back $249. I think the last one I bought was 2 years ago, or so. It was $60
for 16 GB. I make my living taking pictures. What would 16 GB worth of
pictures have cost me in 2001?

I'm happy with these numbers. Simply put, let's think very carefully before
using absolutes.

~~~
dnautics
Since you've cherry picked your data to support an observation of no
inflation, do you also support not increasing the minimum wage?

~~~
dakrootie
There is acknowledgement of inflation in every one of my examples, save
certain electronics. I have no idea how to answer this question as I didn't
deny prices increased.

------
dsacco
This article is a lot of fluff. It opens with a survey that finds a majority
of millenials do not agree with capitalism.

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.

Finally, it sort of meanders around with different people weighing in on what
this might mean or what the cause could be.

Nothing really...happened here. It would be nice to see an article (or survey)
that does a few things better than this:

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.

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.

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.

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 _like_ 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.

------
Gustomaximus
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.

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.

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.

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.

~~~
edblarney
"The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen
through as rhetoric"

I can hardly believe that anyone who was alive during the 'cold war' would
ever say that.

I grew up in an immigrant community in Canada, and most of my friends fled
those disastrous, oppressive and totalitarian 'communist paradises' all over
E. Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba - and also - Sweden, by the way. Nordic
countries were extremely socialist during the 1950's to mid 1980's.

If you were to try to say this in front of my friend's parents, they'd
'trigger', and kick you right out of the house in anger.

My uncle escaped Communist Hungary as a boy, literally, at night, running
through the forest with soldiers chasing he and his mother.

I also remember the very real threat of a nuclear holocaust, in the 1970's to
late 1980's it was a very, very real and tangible things.

You can try to 'debate', that's all fine, but communist utopian (read:
dystopian) ideals seemed pushed by young naive people in every generation.
It's almost as though they don't grasp the lessons of history.

There'll always be need for 'constant vigilance' against oppression by
capital, fleeced consumers etc. - but socialism and especially communism are
unmitigated disasters.

Communists are definitely 'dirty'. They represent, in reality - the world's
greatest movement of mass murder and oppression. The paradox of the constant
attraction to communism lies in their apparent goodwill: hey, who wouldn't
want 'equality' and 'food for everyone' , yada, yada? Sounds great! Reality is
a little harder and sometimes takes time to grasp.

"privatise luxury, socialise necessity". Defining 'luxury and necessity' is
the root of that statement.

In Poland, just before the fall of communism, they had only Vanilla, Chocolate
and 'Pink' ice-cream, because anything else was bourgeois (i.e. a luxury), and
banned. In Bulgaria, there was no ice-cream. :)

Food is definitely on some level a 'necessity' and we definitely have not
socialized that. Maybe we can make sure everyone gets healthcare without
socializing too hard as well.

~~~
Clubber
The problem with the theory of communism economics is we've only seen it
implemented a few times, and they've all been terrible.

Communism, I believe, was to be implemented in a post industrial country. When
Russia implemented it, they were pre-industrial, and during a massive war.

As an aside, Germany actually shipped, by train, an exiled Lenin to Russia to
destabilize it during WWI.

~~~
Retra
The problem with communism is the same problem with unregulated capitalism:
when you give extraordinary power to a small minority, everyone else suffers.

There's also the problem that violent revolutions are extremely risky, and are
unlikely to result in anything but a dictatorship, exacerbating the previous
point.

Most failed communist communist governments have these problems, as do most
failed capitalist governments. Until you have a peaceful transition into a
communist system properly hardened against corruption, you'll have little real
reason to believe it is any more flawed than capitalist economies.

~~~
Clubber
I don't think you can reasonably compare the suffering of any capitalist
society with the suffering of Soviet Russia, especially in the 1930s.

~~~
RugnirViking
You can try

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company#Confl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company#Conflicts_and_wars_involving_the_VOC)

------
jstewartmobile
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 _privileges_ to
keep the winners winning with a minimum of effort.

If that's what passes for capitalism, who wouldn't reject it?

People spend too much time debating economic systems when the fundamental
problem is a public neglect of equal justice under the law.

~~~
smokestack
Equal opportunity, not "equal justice under law". Capitalism favors those who
are lucky. It's nothing to do with law.

Edit: who wouldn't reject these things if they weren't benefiting from them
(vast majority of people)?

~~~
jstewartmobile
It has everything to do with the law.

If a small bank got into the insurance business prior to financial services
dereg of 1999, it would have been _crucified_ by the feds. Citibank and
Travelers did exactly that, but since our justice and regulatory structures
are pay-for-play, and their market capitalizations were high enough, they were
able to proceed without controversy.

On an individual level, our prison population is disproportionately black, and
disproportionately locked up on minor charges with an inadequate defense. A
prison stay has far-reaching consequences on wealth, employment, and social
status.

As a small business person, if I were to copy an idea from Apple (like, say
rounded corners), they would sue me into the ground (I think their suit with
Samsung is already over $1B). If they were to steal my idea, I would go broke
on attorneys fees long before I ever got to a courtroom.

Equal opportunity isn't worth much without equal justice under the law. You'd
have a good run, only to have the house take back all the winnings in the end.

------
mindcrash
Yes, because a society based on Marxism will be _so much better_. Because that
is the big idea right? Marxism?

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 _least destructive_ forms of governing society.

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"

------
mc32
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?

~~~
nostrademons
That doesn't follow from the article. What it said, explicitly, was they want
less _crony capitalism_.

Globalization itself isn't bad. Globalization where the playing field is
rigged so that you need to be a billion-dollar corporation to participate in
the spoils is.

~~~
mc32
On the one hand globalization is good --despite cries of "imperialism"
globalization has done more to deliver people from abject poverty than
anything else --I'd argue much better than if native socialism had taken place
and disallowed "imperialistic" global companies from setting foot. Even the
Doles and Chiquitas, much maligned for making banana republics out of
countries, had a positive impact on those countries... See the alternatives,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Myanmar, Nepal, etc. countries where these imperialistic
global companies did not set foot and "exploit" the locals.

On the other hand, it does take away from the poor people in developed
countries like the US, Japan, the UK, Australia, South Korea, etc. when their
economies seek out cheaper labor to make their economies work. If we didn't
have imported labor for farm workers for example, we might pay more for
grocery goods, etc but we'd have people who are currently out of a job making
some money working on farms --working on farms _isn't that much worse_ than
working at a McD or Walmart. It's be kind of like grocery goods are in Japan
--good quality, but expensive picked by their own farm workers -with the aid
of automation.

In addition to that, Globalization has not only enabled seeking cheap labor
but also seeking "cheap" regulation and government through globalization. And
these kids of things either enable or exacerbate things like the financial
crises.

------
twblalock
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.

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.

~~~
waisbrot
But it's interesting to see that "capitalism" is becoming a dirty word, when
in the cold-war era it was the opposite of "communism" which was a synonym for
"evil".

~~~
twblalock
Yet "socialism" is an even dirtier word according to the survey results. What
we really have here are young people who are fed up with the low level of
economic opportunity available to them, relative to the level of opportunity
they expected to have.

~~~
mindcrash
You are not looking for the word "socialism". The word you are looking for has
the highest approval rating in this poll. Then everything makes sense.

------
eli_gottlieb
_Arise ye prisoners of starvation! Arise ye wretched of the Earth. For justice
thunders condemnation, a better world in birth._

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.

------
friedman23
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.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Keynesian demand side capitalism has proved to be great.

Unregulated supply side economics appears to lead to massive exploitation and
monopolies.

That being said socialism and capitalism work together everyday in America.
See highways, education, plumbing, etc.

It has been argued that Socialism/government regulation is needed for
Capitalism to work optimally.

~~~
friedman23
If we are going to call every government with a highway system and a free
healthcare system socialist the word becomes meaningless.

------
schoen
(2016)

I'm curious what the results would be for "free enterprise", "free markets",
or "private property".

------
raleighm
Issues it would be helpful to unbundle when talking about capitalism:

Contract law. "Capitalism" here usually means private voluntary agreements are
very sacred or absolutely sacred.

Property law. "Capitalism" here usually means a rule of first possession.

Tax law. "Capitalism" here usually means a presumption against taxation,
especially if redistributive in purpose.

Limited liability. "Capitalism" here usually means possibility of absentee
investors.

Fiduciary duties. "Capitalism" here usually means duty to maximize
shareholders' economic value.

Antitrust law. "Capitalism" here, as term is used by self-perceived opponents,
usually refers to corporate bigness.

Etc.

Was Thomas Jefferson capitalist? He hated bigness in all forms.

Was Thomas Paine capitalist? He thought rule of first possession was useful
because easy to administer but proposed something akin to universal basic
income.

Important to be clear, as many others have noted in the comments.

------
otempomores
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.

------
oliwarner
I don't think this is anything particularly new. There's a pretty old saying
(that is constantly mis-attributed[1]):

> 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.

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.

That said, there's no reason why this would not be _more true_ 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.

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.

[1]: [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-
head/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/)

------
squarefoot
Capitalism per se isn't wrong, but becomes extremely dangerous if left
uncontrolled as it is today. What is _very_ 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.

------
Jotra7
So much no true Scotsman about capitalism in here it's not funny.

------
carsongross
“The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong
about what is right.”

― G.K. Chesterton

------
tmoot
It seems like publishing standards have really sank.

~~~
ssalazar
Capitalism at work!

------
Tokkemon
My grandfather had to live under communist rule. Capitalism is fantastic
compared.

------
salesguy222
Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the
lives and wellbeings of others.

if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to
hear how!

~~~
gremlinsinc
Part 1: Caps on Exec pay - 25x avg salary for first x # of employees, as you
add more employees over your baseline that multiplier goes up for example
every 1000 employees = 1x so hire 10k and now you're able to earn 35x median
wage -- i.e. more employees = more money for execs, as wages increase that
also = more money for execs. That handles the corporate side of the
corruption.

Part 2: Enact the Anti-corruption act in every governmental capacity from
mayorships to congress to ban all money in politics.

Part 3: Members of congress can earn no more than the average salary of an
American Citizen, and their healthcare plan is--the same as the average
American w/ no perks above what American's get.

Part 4: Term limits for congress, not life-time bans, but you can only server
in congress non-congruent terms, meaning you can't serve back to back, someone
else has to take your place for a term. More lifeblood bled into congress
can't be a bad thing.

~~~
dustinblake
There's a major problem with term limits. Let's say we fix the House of
Representatives so that instead of constantly having to run for (re)election
with two year terms, we change them to 4 year terms but limit them to 2.
Ignoring the major changes that the committee chair/assignment system would
require, no longer having a wide range of seniority, the entire body would
suffer because the most experienced any legislator could be would be those
elected to their second term, i.e. years 5-8 of their House career.

Why is this not good? Who also resides in Washington DC and interacts with
legislators, with virtually no limits on their length of involvement in this
game? Lobbyists. You set up a system where the Legislators are effectively
perpetual newbies with an extremely broad scope of issues they must interact
with and influence for the best. Lobbyists with just a decade of experience
will know far more than any legislator. There's already a lot of legislation
is introduced that's provided verbatim from lobbyists... expect that to get
worse, not better, with an even more inexperienced elected officials.

We already have a system of term limits, it's called electing someone else.
Don't make it impossible to keep an excellent legislator who has the broad
support of their constituents; make it easier to elect someone new to replace
a bad one. With the insane costs of campaigning and getting elected, we'd all
be better served by simply reducing that barrier to a minimum. Publicly funded
campaigns also remove the influence of financial contributions.

------
EJTH
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.

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.

But when asked, then sure everyone is against capitalism.

------
mrschwabe
Reject taxation and monopolization, not capitalism.

~~~
astrange
Personally, I'm okay with two of those.

------
pizza
Maybe the way to read this is "willingness to embrace innovative alternatives
to the stagnation of current financial systems"

------
jitix
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.

~~~
zurn
The article is paraphrasing a poll that was done by Harvard Institute of
Politics, that had 771 18-29 year old responders. I think that is a reasonable
sample size for this kind of poll.

------
known
Millennials are thinking Capitalism is a hindrance to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

------
known
Millennials are confused; Unlike capitalism, globalization is zero-sum;

------
gydfi
Like most arguments about "isms" that do not have a single, rigorous
definition accepted by everybody, debates about "capitalism" are pretty
useless.

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.

------
Grue3
A majority of millennials are idiots. News at 11.

~~~
dang
Would you please not post uncivil and unsubstantive comments to HN?

------
perseusprime11
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?

~~~
twblalock
You may not like capitalism, but it is an indisputable fact that capitalist
societies have higher standards of living, including for the poor, than
societies that use any other economic system. By that standard, it's more
successful than any other system, and hardly a failure, despite what other
problems is has.

By the way, the problems you describe about insurance (I assume you mean
health insurance) and the high cost of education are not characteristics of
most capitalist economies. The United States is an outlier in those areas.
Plenty of other capitalist countries have universal health care and free
education. Plenty of others have universal health care and non-free education.
Only the US has the double-whammy of expensive health care and expensive
education.

~~~
perseusprime11
How does Universal Health care and Free education play into the principles of
capitalism?

