Americans are pro-socialism – that solves.

Young Americans support abstract and unworkable socialism Appeared in the Daily Caller, March 3, 2023 Young Americans support abstract and unworkable socialism It’s undeniable that in western countries including the United States, young people are expressing a preference for profound economic and social change including socialism. But of course, young Americans never lived in a world with widespread socialism and the misery it created. In fact, their version of “socialism” has never existed and is unworkable. According to a 2017 poll, a majority of American millennials preferred to live in a “socialist, communist, or fascist nation than in a capitalist one.” The Feb. 2019 cover of The Economist heralded “The Rise of Millennial Socialism” and featured poll results from Gallup showing 51 per cent of people aged 18-29 approved of socialism. And most recently, our new poll indicated that 45 per cent of Americans aged 18-24 agree that socialism is the ideal economic system for the U.S. Critically, however, most polls do not define socialism. Historically, socialism has meant that the state owns or controls the means of production—that is, raw materials, plants, equipment, technology and even the labor needed to turn inputs into goods and services. For those old enough to remember, the economic outcome of such socialism was so bad that the system collapsed under the weight of its own failures and largely ceased to exist after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Today, however, only 32 per cent of Americans in our poll define socialism as government taking control of companies and industries such that the state—not individuals and entrepreneurs—control the economy. Rather, when Americans today express support for socialism, what they really mean is more expansive government. Specifically, 58 per cent of Americans define socialism as the government providing more services and 47 per cent define it as the government guaranteeing a minimum income for all citizens. Among younger Americans (ages 18-34), those percentages increase to 66 per cent and 53 per cent, respectively.