Home » Majority of young people say they don’t “support” capitalism

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Majority of young people say they don’t “support” capitalism — 31 Comments

  1. Capitalism is a word coined by Karl Marx to describe the way things really work.

  2. Millennials are, generally, libertarian socialists, meaning that they support high taxes and regulation except for the things that they want to do and the industry that they work in. In those areas, the tyrannical government should butt out. Feel the Bern!

  3. I wonder if millanials understand the difference between capitalism and croney capitalism. Therin lies the critical difference.

  4. If I may, let me approach this from the opposite point of view; i.e., let’s look at the counterpart to capitalism; socialism.

    The point that most people miss about socialism is that its not a fundamental economic system. It requires other people’s money even to work poorly and inefficiently. The left constantly pushes it as a fundamental way of life, a utopia of fairness, but in reality it is a parasitic system incapable of existing on its own.

    The redistribution of assets requires rich people with an excess of assets which will be redistributed (i.e., other people’s money). The socialist utopia in any form (socialism, communism, etc.), by definition, has no rich people whose assets can be redistributed; that redistribution has already taken place: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. It represents a social and economic entropy, and any physicist will tell you that in a state of entropy (balance) all activity stops.

    Additionally, the philosophical fly in the ointment is those who run the socialist government. Just as those who run the capitalist government, those at the top of the bureaucratic pyramid become particularly wealthy; has there ever been a more efficient wealth creating machine for its members than congress?

    Those atop the socialist pyramid certainly have NO intention of redistributing their own assets, they only want to redistribute yours. Have you seen those agitating for “fairness” and “wealth redistribution” writing any checks of their own? Russell Brand, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders come immediately to mind, but the list is long, indeed!

    Socialism requires that one look up the economic ladder with envy at those above. The dirty little secret that the leftists never utter is that someone is on the ladder below you looking up at you. Thus Winston Churchill: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

  5. If the polls were taken by leaving out the names and labels, and just describing an economic system by its defining characteristics (again, assuming the pollster knows what those actually are), there would be very different results.
    When people answer according to what THEY think they are being asked (instead of the objective reality), the answers are basically worthless.
    Unexplained concepts in polls are a feature of push-polling.

  6. T Says:
    April 27th, 2016 at 11:55 am
    ***
    #HayekHasAPosse
    Socialists: putting your money where their mouth is.
    You can’t be “a little bit” socialist.

    ***
    As a good capitalist, I should be monetizing memes, but consider these a loss-leader free sample.

  7. “Basic necessities, such as food and shelter, are a right that the government should provide to those unable to afford them.”

    I suspect that far too many millenials never had to do menial work to earn an allowance, nor were they required to purchase their “wants” from their own earned money. Instead, the money just came from nowhere, given to them for nothing.

    Not unlike the overly-generous public welfare economies in some European countries.

    Also not unlike Venezuela . . . until recently.

  8. And 47 percent agreed with the statement that “Basic necessities, such as food and shelter, are a right that the government should provide to those unable to afford them.”

    Uh, sounds like they don’t understand what rights are, either!

    Would love to know what these respondents think enables governments to provide those “rights” of food, shelter, and healthcare. And though we here understand that the verb ‘provide’ means to pay for, I have to wonder if these students think it is OK for the government to compel others to perform the labor involved at their own expense (e.g., are doctors and nurses compelled to serve others for free or below costs/value?). Where do they think tax revenue comes from? Why is it that capitalist America has companies that produce things like iPhones and medical treatments (drugs and tech) at a greater proportion than most other countries?

    Honestly, these kids have been brainwashed and/or taught by idiots.

  9. “Socialists: putting your money where their mouth is.” [Aesopfan @ 11:59 am]

    That is worthy of iconic bumper sticker territory!

  10. I think Aesopfan has described the issue with the polls accurately.

    The term Capitalism has been thrown about academic and intellectual circles indiscriminately, with pejorative connotations, for a long time now. It is not surprising that the term elicits a negative response from people with little understanding. The Harvard pollster demonstrated lamentable ignorance when he described it as freedom from the Soviet Union and other despotic regimes. Surely, an educated person should understand that capitalism is not a political system; it is quintessentially the separation of the economic system from the political. When the political system intrudes on the capitalist economy, it distorts it. That may be mitigating to a point; but, it is a corruption nevertheless. Because we had the political will to resist the Soviet Union, and other despotic threats, we had the luxury of developing our economic system based on capitalistic principles, and benefited accordingly. The naysayers ignore history and reality.

    I also think that people misunderstand socialism. If they can point to a single successful truly socialist economy, I am not sure what it would be. Those who advocate for socialism tend to equate the European Social Democracies with Socialist economic principles. That is not accurate, of course, to the extent that they allow private ownership of business. They simply stifle the efforts of producers with onerous regulations, and fund their social welfare programs with confiscatory taxes. In other words intrusive government writ large. They were able to sustain an illusionary state for a time; but, it is now unraveling.

  11. “They [the European Social Democracies] were able to sustain an illusionary state for a time; but, it is now unraveling.” [Oldflyer @ 1:27pm]

    . . . and, of course, one of the important reasons these social democracies were even partly successful is because they outsourced the greatest portion of their defense and their defense budget to NATO (and the U.S. purse).

    They were, as Cap’n Rusty points out about millenials (above @ 12:06 pm), like teenagers on an allowance without the necessity of subsidizing their own needs. That necessity is where it all hits the fan.

  12. I first noticed Millennials in around 2005-2006 as their oldest members started whining about how unfair it was that they had gone through college (apparently, as far as they knew, the First People Ever to do so) and now had been working for upwards of weeks or months (OK, maybe even a year or two) and were not making as much money as the people to whom they compared themselves – their parents, or other older adults that they could see at their companies. After all, they were the Best Ever at Everything! They were ever so much more clever than everyone they knew and worked with. Why weren’t they making as much money as everyone else?

    (If you think I’m exaggerating, you didn’t read their blogs at the time. I’ve really hated these little twits for a while now.)

    After the economic crash that ruined millions – many of us Gen Xers, years later, have never replaced jobs lost between around 2007-2010 – the same Millennials that were stomping their feet about unfairness back then have come out even more stridently angry about “unfairness.”

    I expect they took it in the pants during the crash – they were, after all, the newest and least useful people at their companies, and when companies shed massive numbers of people in those years during layoffs, I expect a lot of Millennials lost jobs.

    That said, the same spoiled brats who couldn’t figure out why people who had been working 20-30 years longer than they made more money are the same people now who are positively rabid that anyone is left that’s not as broke as they, as a group, are. They really hate anyone who made it through the last few years remotely intact financially – and they hate the companies who employ those people. And what companies survived this mess? Big international ones of course – evil “corporations.”

    Given that, I honestly expect they won’t be happy until everyone is living in huts, and of course they won’t be happy then, either. I don’t know what it will take to get Millennials to grow up and I really fear that they will be coming of age soon to be in political power.

  13. Also:

    Husband and wife waiting in line for bread an meat for endless hours. Finally, husband is fed up, tells his wife to save his place.

    “Where are you going?” asks she asks.

    The husband responds, “I’ve had it with waiting in line. I’m going to kill Breshnev.”

    Several hours later the husband returns to his wife who is still in line.

    “Well,” she asks, “Did you kill Breshnev?”

    “No,” responds the husband. “That line was even longer.”

  14. Likewise, I remember a supposedly true story which was related, I believe, on this blog. It was about a Soviet glass works which was rated by the tonnage of glass it produced. The product was so thick, so as to meet tonnage requirements, that the glass was useless.

    To solve the problem, the govt switched the rating requirement from tonnage to square feet produced. The resultant change was that the factory produced glass so thin that it was useless.

    I know . . . it sounds just like a joke.

    Ah! The utopia of the command economy!!

  15. My challenge remains unanswered, though.

    I will immediately become a card-carrying rabid socialist if any socialist can cogently justify the following:

    In a society founded on the philosophy of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” how does one justify Leonid Breshnev’s having an antique automobile collection?

  16. Expecting leftist/liberal Millennials, as a group, to ever grow up is an exercise in futility. All isms of the left, to one degree or another, reject fundamentally critical aspects of reality. Given a willingness to deny reality at the most fundamental of levels, what basis is there for imagining that they will suddenly, en mass, awaken? Especially as it is far easier to find a scapegoat.

    The conclusion is clear; they deserve in full, the horror that awaits. In their arrogant certainty, they contemptuously ridicule and slander the character of anyone who attempts to present ‘inconvenient’ factual truths.

    But it is the innocents who will suffer as a result of their incredible stupidity and hubris, wherein their true responsibility lies and that, will be a stain upon their souls, that no amount of recompense to their victims… can erase.

  17. When the oldsters die, then these kids will have been tricked into state slavery under a dictatorship, that over time, will become less and less beneficient and kind

  18. or, as George Washingotn supposedly said: The government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master

    Many people only learn that when it is too late..

  19. T says: The socialist utopia in any form (socialism, communism, etc.), by definition, has no rich people whose assets can be redistributed;

    and now you know the difference between socialism and communism as others dont actually know. socialism is the stage in which you have the ability to take from others to give to others… the stage in which there are wealthy people.

    communism is what happens after you run out of the wealthy and a dictatorship now tells people what to do for their pittance of a fair share. the wealthy westerners that give into socialism as it protects and increases their wealth (for a time), believe that latter part wont ever come, or else they are fools willing to hang their posterity

    the soviet part is how its organized… ie. how do you organize a state run by the people that isnt a republic and isnt a classic system? easy, you have committees, and councils and so on… thats what soviet means… rule by (citizen) councils, which like our system gets corrupted to professional councils or professional politicians.

    this is why the leftists look to something in process, cant tell the direction its in, and calls it a success because the day it was tried it didnt collapse.

    so sweden is seen as proof it works, except that 15 or so years ago, sweden backed off its socialism and went capitalist again to recharge so to speak

    this failure of socialism was to be fixed by hybridization, a system that was free market (ie. unpredictable due to lack of control) would be combined with a controlled market (communism), with the idea you can balance the two and get fascism, or state controlled capitalism.

    for the most part communism is off the table and what won is hitlers fascism. only because the control freaks are not willing ot live in a world in which they dont pretend to have control. they are the people who cant believe the world exists without a creator even if they dont believe there is a creator. they do not believe in things like self organization and so on

    china is trying to use a capitalist area to inspire and give energy to a communist area… think wizard of oz and the “you can live in the crystal towers if you are good enough communist” as the carrot in front of the donkey

    the problem is that you dont get a more efficient system out of this hybridization… you get one that seems more efficient to the people in control as they become wealthier, but it creates many ills that are systemic and so, require more and more games to fix.

    the system also ends up with the biggest problem being responsbility. under capitalism, each is responsible for their own part, so each is an individual.. under communism, no one is responsible for any part but the people in charge who took control, and so they end up being destroyed as their system gets more and more ill and collapses. fascism is not really any better as the horse of production becomes more and more anemic.

    you can tell we are in the fascist part of things where the false illusions of the communists drive the ideas of how to improve capitalism… and neo is finding out that they can only do this if people are too ignorant to say that wont work!! the leaders see it as getting cooperation, but in a real system, its a way to avoid doing bad or badly.

    like the poor they think that money is magical, that if you have enough in a pile things just work. they look to the capitalists who seem to be doing that, and then say, if we put a pile of money to our friends and they can make it work. but the truth is that without risk, there is no way to decide what is a good idea or what is a bad idea… without knowlege of how it functions, one also cant tell if its a good idea or a bad idea.

    and given the power structure and the lack of desire of being responsible as a norm of the underclass, it all slowly falls apart more and more like a mismanaged (it is) system or machine…

    this is why feminism was so key to this conversion.
    first, you had to get rid of the dominance of the group that likes capitalism, knows how its run, and will pass it on.

    so you get the ear of the ladies, which you can turn as they are always miserable in their own lot and never really happy (biological)… you get them to want the BBD (bigger better deal), and you convince them that if they support the state which supports them, they wont have to be responsible and the state will back them on it. so its always someone elses fault that they dont have enough money from one family to support two in two locations with two rents… or they dont have to push to get raises, the state will set salaries… they dont have to be responsbile for day care, thats what pre k is for… they dont evne have to be responsible with their sex organs and what they produce as the state will make someone else responsible… (but not give away the item, as that would negate the wealth transfer from responsible person to irresponsible holder).

    the sad part is that if you go far enough back and read the papers of these people this is exactly what they discussed… how to get X to do Y so that Z will happen in 30 years. ie population decline and denument of the dominant group that wont let go. removal of the ability of the one in the group responsible for the outcome to not have power to fulfill the responsiblity (dads and men)… replacement with a bigger power (the state)..

    if feminists didnt get rid of dad and get rid of the time they spent supporting their family instead of the state, the kids neo is talking about would not be so extreemly stupid as to these systems, history etc.

    it was long ago deemed that these things came from the dad who passed on skills, knowlege, family learning etc… he maintained customs and family stuff… the women were the reserve of intelligence. ie. smart women picking smart mates would have smart children…

    but get rid of dad you get rid of custom, you get rid of the idea of proper teaching, the mom dont have time to teach, nor does she teach the way men do. her teaching makes for helpless kids that need a provider cause that is her role by nature.. the independent person that has to out earn their own needs for others, and can only do that by knowing the world without illusion (or less of it), comes from the dad.

    thats why the communists fomented the feminists so much and gave it a communist twist. the women would seek responsibility in a state to tell them what to do rather than a husband. and they will gladly give up the responsibility for the outcome to others in whcih all they have to do is claim they are a victim of every other. (you know, like maduro in venezuela says theya re a victim of capitalists etc)

    being a woman in a classic family is being the welfare recipient of a capitalist redistribution from the husband… women have always lived a redistributive life under something that brought more than they could have home for them and their children.

    this was all analysed and discused until the people discussing it were yelled out, marginalized, etc… called names and so on

    once the ladies did that, the rest is a fait accompli. there is no way to stop it, turn it, fix it, or prevent it from becoming a fascist state then a communist one eventually…

    the reason is simple, women wont support children and a mate the way men will support women and children…. women who try this, want the best jobs and basically take away the earning power of the providers, till there are no providers any more

    so it comes full circle to what was said above..
    and it happens in families first, now its happening in the state… once there werent enough providers or providers that had enough, women moved to the state to provide. and the state said, i will give you lots of freebies… till the state runs out and then the ladies wake up and say, what the hell did we do?

    now you know how to change a free market capitalist society to a socialist one that will become a fascist state then communist.

    change who provides for family, and when that dont work have the state be there to replace the other and to use the desire as an excuse to more power to provide more… eventually, it runs into the state having to set salaries for women, dictate leave etc. then eventually they run out of other peoples money as the men cant earn, and the ladies cant have kids with 90% tax rate to pay for other ladies kids, and then the promise of a way out is what? a full communist state where the government can force the men to produce so that they can be robbed and provide for the women that give the state the power.

    we are at the end game and the ones who could do something wont and never will. no matter how bad it will get as they can blame the men which fixes nothing, but makes them feel better and not have to be responsible and act.

    their kids went to the state to teach them the ideology that gives the state the most power… no? from pre-k on, the new centralized school system modeled after the soviet system, now has soviets to teach, raise, and program for its own benefit.

  20. Most people don’t know the definition of capital. Capital is simply the means of producing wealth. Capital is the tools used to produce goods and services and capitalists are people that use these tools. So these young people don’t support capitalism, i.e. people using tools to produce goods and services? What ignoramuses.

  21. i forgot to mention two psots above that this also requires a switching to the norm of short term thinking… feminists are short term thinkers… young kids who take this up are short term thinkers.

    this is why they cant think past what they want to what will happen when they get it.

    so a woman fighting for high taxes for social reasons
    and at the same time fighting to displace men for high paying jobs, cant see that what she is doing is creating a larger burden for herself.

    same with the minimum wage argument… its short term, so short they cant tell you what will happen next over time. so they are now finding out, and the sad part is that if they gave up, and backed down, the line of long term thinking to handle it will continue.

    so mcdonalds is moving to activity tables and kiosks to replace most register people. and now there is a company that has a machine that will cook over 360 burgers an hour and assemble them on demand with custom meat mixes… (ie. you not only get to say i want a burger, you get to say i want a burger from 90% meat 10% fat, with some bison and maybe a touch of pork for flavor).

    all the points of capitalismand its badness are not from capitalism but from others seeking to game it, control it, make it favor them unfairly, etc…

    at its core, capitalism is what animals do, its tit for tat.. its favors with remuneration… there is no third party for taxation and or oversight (other than to keep out cheats).

    so all of this has to do with short term thinking
    what happens when you put gays in the military?
    short term, not much, long term then what?

    what happens when feminists dont have babies but violent low iq people get to have babies paid for by the feminist women workers who make the money? the men would refuse to pay for other peoples kids, women on the other hand, dont see much problem in it.

    but what happens when they dont have babies like the shakers or the dinosaurs? are they the future?

    being super sexually active in youth is short term, and what does it do long term? putting off births till later is short term, what does it do long term? affirmatice actoin fixes the problem by force short term, what does it do long term?

    all of what is going on are short term promises with long term miseries, like the pregnant woman bitching to me on the subway… hey, short term you got the state to pound men who treated you special into a mantra of constant equal… then when they treat you equal over the long term being more and more equal, what happens? the unapreciated perks you got are gone… and the person is standing there angry at the people who cant go in two directions at once to make her happy short term and long term.

    its really that simple in the games played on the society

    student loans, short term fix that allows you to go to school, and when coupled with the short term idea of what you want to do or learn sans earnings which is long term, you get the education cost crisis, and want the state to fix the mess (without you changing your time horizon).

    shor term fun leads to long term misery

  22. T Says:
    I know . . . it sounds just like a joke.
    Ah! The utopia of the command economy!!

    no, thats not it, that is to illustrate that the state never set the measure to be what was needed but something else.

    you can look to howard huges and the spruce goose to see that at play.

    but under capitalism, the client does not tell you what they want, you produce (at risk) to give them something they want, and need… so there is no metric to meet that allows you to bypass the actual goal

    this is why the command economies fail (or rather, one more reason), and why our society is going under as the simplefication to state a problem and then say lets change it leads to maladjustments.

    so saying there is income inequality..
    the short term thinkers say thats bad

    but the long term thinkers say, that makes sense
    the long term can think of the reasons why over time that people are unequal ranging from time, to skill to luck and even familial passing down

    the short term thinkers dont think about the consequences of their desires and fulfillments over time

    how can you stop income inequality? you set everyones salary to the same amnount regardless of their job… but then, how do you get people to do the crap work… shoot them if they dont do the assigned labor.

    the key here is to be the one in position to serve the short term thinkers with your long term self favoring solutions…

    its akin to making wishes with a djin thinking its a genie…

    welcome to utopia.

  23. In a society founded on the philosophy of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” how does one justify Leonid Breshnev’s having an antique automobile collection?

    thats easy..

    being breshnev, he defines needs…
    he is in that position…
    being breshnev, he has the ability
    so according to his ability he can fulfill his need

    thats how the system works…
    thats NOT how people who dont think it through get how it works… the leaders always ahve special needs apart from the lower classes and of course they isnure that they have the ability or means too.

    which leads to the rest of the explanation:

    why doesnt a peasant have a car collection
    breshnev says he does not need it
    breshnev insures he never has the ability.

  24. Artfldgr,

    I understand the re-definition of needs and I take your point. It’s a twisting of the language and the philosophy to create the appearance of need, but that appearance only works from “inside the box.” If one does not accept his tortured logic, then Brezhnev’s “need” vaporizes; if it is not universal, then it is not a true need.

    The world of finance has a term for financial transactions called “arm’s length transactions”; have you actually sold your house or did you make a gift to your child? Well, would you transfer ownership to a stranger under the same circumstances you just transferred you house to your child? If “No,” the it’s not a bonafide sale. This also works philosophically; can Brexhnev convince an impartial observer, someone not beholden to him, that his need for an antique auto collection is real? If not, than it’s not an “arm’s length transaction,” it’s not a r It’s like calling a juvenile delinquent a “justice-involved youth.”

    This reinforces the adolescent “philosophy” of socialism/communism because such word play is like the adolescent definition of a need: “Dad, I NEED a cell phone.” “Actually, son, you don’t. People lived for tens of thousands of years without cell phones. You may WANT a cell phone, but you don’t NEED a cell phone.”

    Brezhnev may WANT an antique auto collection, but Breshnev does not NEED an antique auto collection however he chooses to define “need.” Brezhnev may even convince himself that this IS a need, but until he convinces people outside Oceania,

  25. Sorry, sloppy fingers—prematurely published.

    Here is the revised version:

    Artfldgr,

    I understand the re-definition of needs and I take your point. It’s a twisting of the language and the philosophy to create the appearance of need, but that appearance only works from “inside the box.” If one does not accept his tortured logic, then Brezhnev’s “need” vaporizes; if it is not universal, then it is not a true need.

    The world of finance has a term for financial transactions called “arm’s length transactions”; have you actually sold your house or did you make a gift to your child? Well, would you transfer ownership to a stranger under the same circumstances you just transferred you house to your child? If “No,” the it’s not a bonafide sale. This also works philosophically; can Brezhnev convince an impartial observer, someone not beholden to him, that his need for an antique auto collection is real? If not, than it’s not an “arm’s length transaction,” it’s not a real need.

    I think you would agree that your re-definition of a need by Brexhnev reinforces the adolescent “philosophy” of socialism/communism. “Dad, I NEED a cell phone (antique auto collection).” “Actually, son, you don’t. People lived for tens of thousands of years without cell phones (antique auto collections). You may WANT a cell phone, but you don’t NEED a cell phone.”

    Brezhnev may WANT an antique auto collection, but Breshnev does not NEED an antique auto collection however he chooses to define “need.” There’s no arm’s length transaction here.

    Again, sorry fro the premature publication above!

  26. A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.
    — Saul Alinsky

    …the myth of socialism is far stronger than the reality of capitalism. That is because capitalism is not really an ism at all. It is what people do if you leave them alone.
    — Arnold Beichmen

  27. Surellin Says:
    April 27th, 2016 at 9:18 am

    Capitalism is a word coined by Karl Marx to describe the way things really work.

    &&&&

    Not quite.

    1) Marx was one screwy fella, as his diatribes against capitalism arose out of his anti-Jewish banker world view.

    While most associate Marx with 1848 — and the political turbulence of that year — his scribblings began back in 1832 — largely aimed at the banking crisis of Paris.

    One of his telling labels for those bankers was “the Roving Cavaliers of Credit.”

    http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/

    For Marx… Capitalism = Banksterism

    He did not use the modern concept of investment capital — ie plant, equipment, real estate dedicated to production.

    For him, capital meant banking capital — as in their balance sheets and liquidity.

    2) Marx’s starting point was bankers — not robber barons.

    And in that respect, he was railing against Bryan’s Cross of Gold — before Bryan was even born. (1860)

    %%%%%%

    Marx got so much wrong — it’s astounding that his screeds have any traction at all.

    But then most modern economists have things muddled, themselves.

    The link ( Steve Keen ) is worthy of deep study and contemplation.

    Within it Keen lays out how so much orthodox economic dogma is wholly off base… nonsense, in fact.

  28. I have no hope for the future. Tomorrow belongs to a generation of neurotic spoiled children who all got gold stars for participating and never got spanked. Social collapse in the near term is the least horrible of the plausible futures I can imagine.

    Of course, I’ve been yelling at the 21st Century to get off my lawn since around 1990, so what do I know?

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