
A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows - rbanffy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.0928c56dd2f3
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d1zzy
I grew up in a Communist dictatorship in Eastern Europe. Capitalism is far
from being perfect but it was much better for my friends and I than communism.
It wasn't as good for older people that lived most of their life in the
previous regime tho (but we cannot say how capitalism would have treated them
if they haven't had lived almost all their lives in communism).

I do not know what the solution to capitalism's problems is but I do know it's
not communism. I also realize that rejecting capitalism doesn't imply
embracing communism but in practice I don't see anyone suggesting any other
alternatives to it.

With the rise of social-nationalism/right-wing activism again in Europe and
elsewhere I sometimes wonder if this isn't just collective memory forgetting
the horrors of the past that were brought upon by hate and simplification (to
me most political ideals like communism and nationalism are the result of
minds that refuse to view the world in the highly complex state it is in and
are looking for simplifications/shortcuts), we are forever doomed to repeat
those mistakes. :(

~~~
r00fus
Does democratic socialism not have a place in your solution set?

The idea that stakeholders >= shareholders should be enshrined in our
governing policy.

Capitalism has a flaw in that if it isn't actively maintained (i.e., anti-
trust, regulations, tariffs to prevent abuses) it simply becomes oligarchy
(USA is an oligarchy in all but name).

~~~
holydude
Social democracy cannot be replicated in countries like USA or Eastern Europe.
It has had been abused in Eastern Europe to maintain communism 2.0.

~~~
rbanffy
> Social democracy cannot be replicated in countries like USA or Eastern
> Europe

Why?

~~~
holydude
Because of mentality and being very prone to the too much free power makes one
too cocky. We can actually see how it works when corporations get lazy and
mismanage very hard.

~~~
rbanffy
Mentality can be changed for good (the past few years show how it can be
changed for evil).

If it can't, then it's a missed opportunity of planetary proportions.

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20446694?mag=socialism-make-
peo...](https://www.jstor.org/stable/20446694?mag=socialism-make-people-
happy&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)

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thenanyu
Misleading title. The last sentence of the article:

> "They're not rejecting the concept," Della Volpe said. "The way in which
> capitalism is practiced today, in the minds of young people — that's what
> they're rejecting."

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gsam
It's no surprise people reject concepts they don't adequately understand. I
don't know who exactly you could blame here. But if they all understood what
it meant, I don't believe nearly as many would be rejecting it.

~~~
goalieca
That’s quite the accusation. I understand capitalism quite well. It often
optimized the wrong thing. I have no problem with being in the socialist
democracy of canuckistan with regulations and all.

~~~
jjeaff
Canada is still more capitalist than socialist. It has a few socialist Bells
and whistles like socialized medicine, but really not that close to socialism
over all.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Yet it's enough to provide a significantly better quality of life than the US.
As a 24 year old, living in America is rough. I'm $30k in student loan debt,
struggling to find a job in a non-coastal region, and can become bankrupt and
homeless with an unlucky illness.

And my situation is not unique, if anything, I'm above average. I'm lucky
enough to have some money in my savings, a middle-class upbringing, and some
personal finance classes under my belt. For someone not as lucky, it would be
obvious to them that something is incredibly broken in our society.

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incompatible
It's not hard to see the flaws in capitalism, but hard to come up with a
decent alternative. Capitalism is the private ownership of assets used for
production, such as factories and land. One alternative is government
ownership, but that has a terrible track record. What other systems are
possible? Non-profit organisations controlled by their employees?

~~~
jboynyc
Good questions, but you ask as if there were no intellectuals out there
discussing postcapitalist futures or social movements trying to build (or
"prefigure") a postcapitalist world. Granted, they often aren't very visible,
but publications like _Jacobin_ are a good way to keep up with these efforts.

~~~
incompatible
Do you have any specific articles?

~~~
jboynyc
I often recommend this one: [https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-
futures](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/12/four-futures) \-- it has since
been elaborated into a book. Bonus points for lots of sci-fi references.

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vorotato
Phamaceutical lobbies peddling opiates caused the heroin problem, alcohol
lobbies pushed the war or marijuana, bank lobbyists pushed for deregulation
that caused the housing crash, the subsequent recession, and wage stagnation
as well. The problem is they're trying to get money independent of whether
they hurt society or not. This is the second demonstration in american history
that unfettered capitalism naturally creates an environment that is anti-
competitive and fundamentally an un-free market. As lovers of startups, and
the innovation and disruption that they provide, we should be pushing for
models that prevent corporations from seizing control of our government and
pushing out the real innovators. The dreamers who hope to make a living making
the world a better place instead of making a quick buck robbing society.

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andrenth
People who oppose a free market economy are the ones who haven’t lived outside
of one.

~~~
aylmao
People who make broad assumptions are those who haven't looked into closely
into the problem and the literature of different viewpoints.

Or so I assume, idk, my opinion.

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thesmallestcat
Maybe capitalists are more likely to tell pollsters to screw off.

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ben_jones
_Sent from iPhone X_

~~~
Analemma_
Are you only allowed to criticize capitalism if you own no possessions and
live in a hut in the woods you built yourself?

~~~
brucephillips
No, but if you're enjoying products that would have never been developed
without profit incentive, then there's hypocrisy in rejecting capitalism.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and
29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42
percent said they support it.

The results of the survey are difficult to interpret, pollsters noted.
Capitalism can mean different things to different people, and the newest
generation of voters is frustrated with the status quo, broadly speaking._

If you do a survey and ask if people are pro abortion, most of them will say
"no." If you do a survey and ask if they support a woman's rights to have
control over her body and have reproductive choice -- aka "pro choice" \--
most people will say "yes."

Most folks think a woman should have access to abortion services should she
need one. They also think it should be an absolute last resort for when things
go wrong and should not be used too casually as a primary form of birth
control. The reality is that most women would never use it that way. But birth
control methods fail far more often than most people imagine, plus sometimes
someone is assaulted.

TLDR: How you ask the question can skew the answers and also people often mean
very different things with the same word.

Communication R hard.

~~~
brucephillips
_By any definition of capitalism_ , the iphone wouldn't have happened without
it, so you can't claim that ambiguity in the question would prevent hypocrisy.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_" The word 'capitalism' doesn't mean what it used to," said Zach Lustbader, a
senior at Harvard involved in conducting the poll, which was published Monday.
For those who grew up during the Cold War, capitalism meant freedom from the
Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes. For those who grew up more
recently, capitalism has meant a financial crisis from which the global
economy still hasn't completely recovered.

"They're not rejecting the concept," Della Volpe said. "The way in which
capitalism is practiced today, in the minds of young people — that's what
they're rejecting."_

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Analemma_
This sure disappeared from the front page in a hurry.

Here’s your scheduled reminder that, no matter what benevolence they claim, a
news site run by a venture _capitalist_ fund may not have your best interests
at heart vis-à-vis discussions about capitalism.

~~~
dang
Come now, we enjoy a good anti-capitalist critique as much as the next
citizen. But the community's dislike of dupes knows no bounds.

You don't really think we're ideological control constables do you? I can't
imagine a sillier thing to be.

~~~
pvg
We won't know until the posters organize to take over the means of moderation
and consign you to the ash-heap of comment history!

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kapauldo
Extreme capitalism fuels social problems and millennials have to clean up the
mess.

