Young people now favor ‘socialism’ over ‘capitalism’
Young people (18-29) now have a more positive view of socialism than they do of capitalism (49% vs. 43%). This is a shift in just the last two years. No doubt the depressed economy–with a good chunk of college graduates returning home to live with their parents–has been a big influence on these numbers.
Before you panic, keep in mind that these numbers are simply a measure of perception. A majority of those polled probably have no idea what these terms mean. Capitalism has something to do with that mustached banker in the Monopoly game, right?
However, this trend is dire and clearly headed in the wrong direction.
What are conservatives and libertarians to do? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that the political football game isn’t helping this trend in any way. Fox’s Sean Hannity couldn’t teach a free market principle if his life depended on it. Yesterday, he was busy calling Hurricane Sandy ‘Obama’s Katrina.’
And the politicians, themselves? Minus a few individual exceptions, It can be objectively argued that Republicans have expanded the size of government more than Democrats–factoring out Obamacare. (This doesn’t even take into account military spending. Has Senator McCain ever heard of a war he didn’t want to go in debt to fight?)
The growth of entitlement spending over the past half-century has been distinctly greater under Republican administrations than Democratic ones. Between 1960 and 2010, the growth of entitlement spending was exponential, but in any given year, it was on the whole roughly 8% higher if the president happened to be a Republican rather than a Democrat. (Eberstadt)
What to do?
Well, number one, stop giving money to the Republican Party and start supporting individual candidates and organizations. (Speaking of which, I hope you’ll take a look at our expanding mission statement and consider giving a donation to iroots.org.)
Clearly, we have our work cut out for us. There is a ton of work to be done on the educational front. As an aside, I’ve always thought that a site that essentially dumbed down the fabulous mises.org site or made the incredible audio collection more accessible to the general public would be a great place to start–and this happens to be one of our goals here at iroots.org.
Tom Woods is doing an incredible job with his Liberty Classroom and Young Americans for Liberty continues to educate and grow on college campuses. If you don’t have one on your campus, help one get started!
What are some of your ideas of how to expand on the educational front?
A libertarian muppet show?
By Aaron R. Jones
I really wanted to include Tom Wood’s rather funny definition of ‘capitalism.’