Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Friday, April 29th, 2016

A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

Author:     Max Ehrenfreund
Source:     The Washington Post
Publication Date:     Apr 26, 2016
 Link: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows
Stephan:   Our children are our future, whether we like it or not. They will be here when their parent's and grandparent's generations are dead and gone. That's so obvious you would think it would guide policy thinking. But no. Greed, and more greed in the short term blinds some of us to this commonsense truth. The result of that slavering greed is what created wealth inequity, and that is why a majority of the next generation thinks capitalism as practiced in the U.S. sucks. And it is not because they are socialists -- candidly both terms I think few people actually understand. This distaste on the part of Millennials has long term implications that are only now, consider the Sander's campaign, becoming evident. Here are the facts, those pesky little things that tell us the truth about ourselves.
Credit: Shutterstock

Credit: Shutterstock

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.

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.

It isn’t clear that the young people in the poll would prefer some alternative system, though. Just 33 percent said they supported socialism. The survey had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

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.

All the same, that a majority of respondents in Harvard University’s survey of young adults said they do not support capitalism suggests that today’s youngest voters are more focused on the flaws of free markets.

“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 […]

Read the Full Article

1 Comment

  1. RobRob on Friday, April 29, 2016 at 9:46 am

    “Capitalism” doesn’t mean what many think, or what it used to. We really don’t live in a free market. When people talk about alternate ways to “organize” the economy they often think that more government is the answer – in fact we are increasingly seeing more government involvement in the economy, except the involvement is not seen to be for the benefit of the majority. The US appears to be increasingly calcified in terms of social mobility, with the elites increasingly running the system.

    If your conception of capitalism is rule of law, property rights, freedom of association and freedom of choice and equality of individuals all operating under the concept of the time value of capital, you’re not seeing that so much in the US. Rather you see a system that appears to be rigged.