10 ms·

A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

80 points by alphonsegaston 10y ago

otempomores 10y ago
The problem with whishing for socialism in a divided democracy is that the owners will align with any dictator available to keep what they gained. So higher taxation and redistribution within legal boundaries is discussable. Disowning is destroying the democracy and a sure way to start a civill war.
tmoot 10y ago
It seems like publishing standards have really sank.
- ssalazar 10y ago
  Capitalism at work!
friedman23 10y ago
Most people do not even understand what capitalism is thanks to the term becoming conflated with greed. And as the poll shows, not supporting capitalism doesn't mean supporting socialism.
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  Keynesian demand side capitalism has proved to be great. Unregulated supply side economics appears to lead to massive exploitation and monopolies. That being said socialism and capitalism work together everyday in America. See highways, education, plumbing, etc. It has been argued that Socialism/government regulation is needed for Capitalism to work optimally.
  - friedman23 10y ago
    If we are going to call every government with a highway system and a free healthcare system socialist the word becomes meaningless.
- Gustomaximus 10y ago
  To be fair, people who understand capitalism will still debate what it is.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    That's why this poll isn't very useful.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
tabeth 10y ago
In my experience, people who criticize this article are probably benefiting from "capitalism" (the majority of people on here, I reckon, do), meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. That being said, capitalism and having things like free healthcare and education are hardly mutually exclusive. So I think the article's conclusion, "In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy...", (more the poll) are a bit misleading. Here's the actual poll, by the way: http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/ http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publ... Thanks to twblalock for including the recent poll: http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po.. http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po....
- friedman23 10y ago
  I can tell you that if you asked the poorest in America if they believed private ownership of property should be illegal in the US they would disagree. Socialism to most Americans is free healthcare and college. Capitalism is lobbying and the abuse of government sponsored monopolies.
  - eyeownyde 10y ago
    Which is unfortunate, because government involvement in business is a socialist idea, not a capitalist one.
    - pjmorris 10y ago
      Who enforces capitalist property rights?
      - friedman23 10y ago
        Historically property rights were defended by the owner.
        10y ago
dsacco 10y ago
This article is a lot of fluff. It opens with a survey that finds a majority of millenials do not agree with capitalism. Then it tempers that with the acknowledgement that "capitalism means different things to different people" and that it's unclear if respondents favor another system more, or just don't support anything. Finally, it sort of meanders around with different people weighing in on what this might mean or what the cause could be. Nothing really...happened here. It would be nice to see an article (or survey) that does a few things better than this: 1. Engages with both the material and millenials in an intellectually satisfying and nuanced way. Millenials are spoken about here not as members of the conversation, but as specimens. Furthermore, there's frankly not a lot of rigor in figuring out why millenials might not approve of capitalism other than the garden variety "first-pass" analyses you can read elsewhere. 2. Establishes greater rigor in both terminology and discovery. Maybe "capitalism" should have been defined more rigorously in the study. Maybe questions should have been less leading and asked about alternatives if capitalism is not satisfactory to the respondents. 3. Attempts to develop real conclusions instead of polarizing ones. Maybe the survey shouldn't have asked about "capitalism" at all, but instead asked about specific policies in a bipartisan manner. Avoiding the difficulties that make mistakes in my #2 point would be a significant improvement. In fact, at this point I'm not sure if the goal was to honestly engage with the material or millenials at all at this point, or if there is an agenda for pushing out articles that paint huge demographics with such a broad brush. I don't like feeling that way or questioning this, but it doesn't feel like a real attempt was made here. I honestly left this piece without being able to make any real conclusions. I'm a millenial myself, so take that for what it's worth.
mc32 10y ago
So, what they really mean is that they want less globalization... rather then less capitalism... and we know many older voters also voted for less globalization... so it's like both young and old, stung by globalization and financial crises want to retrench?
- pizza 10y ago
  Why would they want greater capitalism with less globalization? Wouldn't that be de facto less capitalist?
  - sverige 10y ago
    The opposing forces are not globalism vs. capitalism, but rather globalism vs. sovereign statism. It's more about the form of government than the mode of the economy.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  That doesn't follow from the article. What it said, explicitly, was they want less crony capitalism. Globalization itself isn't bad. Globalization where the playing field is rigged so that you need to be a billion-dollar corporation to participate in the spoils is.
  - mc32 10y ago
    On the one hand globalization is good --despite cries of "imperialism" globalization has done more to deliver people from abject poverty than anything else --I'd argue much better than if native socialism had taken place and disallowed "imperialistic" global companies from setting foot. Even the Doles and Chiquitas, much maligned for making banana republics out of countries, had a positive impact on those countries... See the alternatives, Bolivia, Paraguay, Myanmar, Nepal, etc. countries where these imperialistic global companies did not set foot and "exploit" the locals. On the other hand, it does take away from the poor people in developed countries like the US, Japan, the UK, Australia, South Korea, etc. when their economies seek out cheaper labor to make their economies work. If we didn't have imported labor for farm workers for example, we might pay more for grocery goods, etc but we'd have people who are currently out of a job making some money working on farms --working on farms _isn't that much worse_ than working at a McD or Walmart. It's be kind of like grocery goods are in Japan --good quality, but expensive picked by their own farm workers -with the aid of automation. In addition to that, Globalization has not only enabled seeking cheap labor but also seeking "cheap" regulation and government through globalization. And these kids of things either enable or exacerbate things like the financial crises.
salesguy222 10y ago
Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the lives and wellbeings of others. if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to hear how!
- Clubber 10y ago
  Term limits to check-and-balance power is a pretty good solution. The trick is to make them long enough so good people can do good things, but short enough so that bad people can't do permanent damage.
- gremlinsinc 10y ago
  Part 1: Caps on Exec pay - 25x avg salary for first x # of employees, as you add more employees over your baseline that multiplier goes up for example every 1000 employees = 1x so hire 10k and now you're able to earn 35x median wage -- i.e. more employees = more money for execs, as wages increase that also = more money for execs. That handles the corporate side of the corruption. Part 2: Enact the Anti-corruption act in every governmental capacity from mayorships to congress to ban all money in politics. Part 3: Members of congress can earn no more than the average salary of an American Citizen, and their healthcare plan is--the same as the average American w/ no perks above what American's get. Part 4: Term limits for congress, not life-time bans, but you can only server in congress non-congruent terms, meaning you can't serve back to back, someone else has to take your place for a term. More lifeblood bled into congress can't be a bad thing.
  - dustinblake 10y ago
    There's a major problem with term limits. Let's say we fix the House of Representatives so that instead of constantly having to run for (re)election with two year terms, we change them to 4 year terms but limit them to 2. Ignoring the major changes that the committee chair/assignment system would require, no longer having a wide range of seniority, the entire body would suffer because the most experienced any legislator could be would be those elected to their second term, i.e. years 5-8 of their House career. Why is this not good? Who also resides in Washington DC and interacts with legislators, with virtually no limits on their length of involvement in this game? Lobbyists. You set up a system where the Legislators are effectively perpetual newbies with an extremely broad scope of issues they must interact with and influence for the best. Lobbyists with just a decade of experience will know far more than any legislator. There's already a lot of legislation is introduced that's provided verbatim from lobbyists... expect that to get worse, not better, with an even more inexperienced elected officials. We already have a system of term limits, it's called electing someone else. Don't make it impossible to keep an excellent legislator who has the broad support of their constituents; make it easier to elect someone new to replace a bad one. With the insane costs of campaigning and getting elected, we'd all be better served by simply reducing that barrier to a minimum. Publicly funded campaigns also remove the influence of financial contributions.
schoen 10y ago
(2016) I'm curious what the results would be for "free enterprise", "free markets", or "private property".
pizza 10y ago
Maybe the way to read this is "willingness to embrace innovative alternatives to the stagnation of current financial systems"
Tokkemon 10y ago
My grandfather had to live under communist rule. Capitalism is fantastic compared.
perseusprime11 10y ago
Did we not learn that Capitalism failed a long time ago? Why else will we have an Insurance system that is deeply incentivized to not cover your conditions? Why else will we have an Education system that is deeply incentivized to profit off your education and put you in debt for your life?
- twblalock 10y ago
  You may not like capitalism, but it is an indisputable fact that capitalist societies have higher standards of living, including for the poor, than societies that use any other economic system. By that standard, it's more successful than any other system, and hardly a failure, despite what other problems is has. By the way, the problems you describe about insurance (I assume you mean health insurance) and the high cost of education are not characteristics of most capitalist economies. The United States is an outlier in those areas. Plenty of other capitalist countries have universal health care and free education. Plenty of others have universal health care and non-free education. Only the US has the double-whammy of expensive health care and expensive education.
  - perseusprime11 10y ago
    How does Universal Health care and Free education play into the principles of capitalism?
- Clubber 10y ago
  Not every industry has to be capitalist to have a capitalist economy, just like having a pure democracy isn't the only way to have a democratic political system. The trick is finding the bugs and fixing them.
Jotra7 10y ago
So much no true Scotsman about capitalism in here it's not funny.
twblalock 10y ago
This is like those surveys that show a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare, but a majority favor almost all of the individual policies that comprise Obamacare when the word "Obamacare" does not appear in the survey. What I would like to see is a survey that asks people their opinions on certain characteristics of capitalism, without mentioning the word "capitalism." I think the results would be very different.
- waisbrot 10y ago
  But it's interesting to see that "capitalism" is becoming a dirty word, when in the cold-war era it was the opposite of "communism" which was a synonym for "evil".
  - twblalock 10y ago
    Yet "socialism" is an even dirtier word according to the survey results. What we really have here are young people who are fed up with the low level of economic opportunity available to them, relative to the level of opportunity they expected to have.
    - mindcrash 10y ago
      You are not looking for the word "socialism". The word you are looking for has the highest approval rating in this poll. Then everything makes sense.
  - snowwrestler 10y ago
    During the Cold War, Americans opposing communism believed they were standing up for "freedom" and "democracy"--not capitalism. People today get so caught up in economic arguments that they overlook the fact that communism was a system of government during the Cold War... a system that required censorship and oppression to maintain power. The word "capitalist" has never been embraced broadly as a social movement in the U.S. Its earliest usages in the U.S. were largely pejorative, by socialists and communists attempting to highlight differences. Even today, people who create and accumulate capital in the U.S. rarely refer to themselves as "capitalists." They call themselves entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, executives, businesspeople, investors, etc.
mrschwabe 10y ago
Reject taxation and monopolization, not capitalism.
- astrange 10y ago
  Personally, I'm okay with two of those.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- smokestack 10y ago
  And accept inequality and luck.
Gustomaximus 10y ago
The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric, and more people are seeing merit of using blends of governance than pure free market. People 50 years ago had to support one system of face real consequences. We can now debate the merit of concepts like "privatise luxury, socialise necessity" without being a 'commie bastard'. With the irony being socialist policy was far more in place and accepted 60 years ago when people were so anti-Russia and communism/socialism. I really hope nations leaders can hear this because if they keep pushing people down with income disparity, access to a reasonable living and opportunity the pressure will build up for a bigger push-back, and potentially something dangerous if driven by anger/desperation rather than a common will to succeed. I feel this is one of many strengths of democracy where it should allow pressure values to pop safely and society realign much earlier and easily than other government styles.
- edblarney 10y ago
  "The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric" I can hardly believe that anyone who was alive during the 'cold war' would ever say that. I grew up in an immigrant community in Canada, and most of my friends fled those disastrous, oppressive and totalitarian 'communist paradises' all over E. Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba - and also - Sweden, by the way. Nordic countries were extremely socialist during the 1950's to mid 1980's. If you were to try to say this in front of my friend's parents, they'd 'trigger', and kick you right out of the house in anger. My uncle escaped Communist Hungary as a boy, literally, at night, running through the forest with soldiers chasing he and his mother. I also remember the very real threat of a nuclear holocaust, in the 1970's to late 1980's it was a very, very real and tangible things. You can try to 'debate', that's all fine, but communist utopian (read: dystopian) ideals seemed pushed by young naive people in every generation. It's almost as though they don't grasp the lessons of history. There'll always be need for 'constant vigilance' against oppression by capital, fleeced consumers etc. - but socialism and especially communism are unmitigated disasters. Communists are definitely 'dirty'. They represent, in reality - the world's greatest movement of mass murder and oppression. The paradox of the constant attraction to communism lies in their apparent goodwill: hey, who wouldn't want 'equality' and 'food for everyone' , yada, yada? Sounds great! Reality is a little harder and sometimes takes time to grasp. "privatise luxury, socialise necessity". Defining 'luxury and necessity' is the root of that statement. In Poland, just before the fall of communism, they had only Vanilla, Chocolate and 'Pink' ice-cream, because anything else was bourgeois (i.e. a luxury), and banned. In Bulgaria, there was no ice-cream. :) Food is definitely on some level a 'necessity' and we definitely have not socialized that. Maybe we can make sure everyone gets healthcare without socializing too hard as well.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
Arise ye prisoners of starvation! Arise ye wretched of the Earth. For justice thunders condemnation, a better world in birth. I mean, sure, most Millenials probably equate capitalism with neoliberalism and socialism with social-democracy, but hey, given that interpretation, yeah, neoliberalism has ruined quite a lot of our lives.
gydfi 10y ago
Like most arguments about "isms" that do not have a single, rigorous definition accepted by everybody, debates about "capitalism" are pretty useless. Karl Marx means one thing by the word, Ayn Rand means another, most other people in between have other ideas (or vague fuzzy feelings) about it, and yet everybody talks as if their own idea matches someone else's.
jstewartmobile 10y ago
I think the rub is that the public debate confuses the triumph of the old British system of aristocracy and privilege with "capitalism". Just as they had the "corn laws" in the early 19th century, we have pharmaceutical import bans, region coding, the "dutch sandwich" and many many other privileges to keep the winners winning with a minimum of effort. If that's what passes for capitalism, who wouldn't reject it? People spend too much time debating economic systems when the fundamental problem is a public neglect of equal justice under the law.
- smokestack 10y ago
  Equal opportunity, not "equal justice under law". Capitalism favors those who are lucky. It's nothing to do with law. Edit: who wouldn't reject these things if they weren't benefiting from them (vast majority of people)?
  - jstewartmobile 10y ago
    It has everything to do with the law. If a small bank got into the insurance business prior to financial services dereg of 1999, it would have been crucified by the feds. Citibank and Travelers did exactly that, but since our justice and regulatory structures are pay-for-play, and their market capitalizations were high enough, they were able to proceed without controversy. On an individual level, our prison population is disproportionately black, and disproportionately locked up on minor charges with an inadequate defense. A prison stay has far-reaching consequences on wealth, employment, and social status. As a small business person, if I were to copy an idea from Apple (like, say rounded corners), they would sue me into the ground (I think their suit with Samsung is already over $1B). If they were to steal my idea, I would go broke on attorneys fees long before I ever got to a courtroom. Equal opportunity isn't worth much without equal justice under the law. You'd have a good run, only to have the house take back all the winnings in the end.
squarefoot 10y ago
Capitalism per se isn't wrong, but becomes extremely dangerous if left uncontrolled as it is today. What is very wrong and dangerous with capitalism is the lack of a line dictating when an entity should stop amassing power and wealth, especially when limited resources are involved. You can print infinite money but you can't create infinite land as the planet surface isn't infinite, which one day will lead us to the point when a few extremely rich people will own the entire Earth surface.
known 10y ago
Millennials are confused; Unlike capitalism, globalization is zero-sum;
known 10y ago
Millennials are thinking Capitalism is a hindrance to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
raleighm 10y ago
Issues it would be helpful to unbundle when talking about capitalism: Contract law. "Capitalism" here usually means private voluntary agreements are very sacred or absolutely sacred. Property law. "Capitalism" here usually means a rule of first possession. Tax law. "Capitalism" here usually means a presumption against taxation, especially if redistributive in purpose. Limited liability. "Capitalism" here usually means possibility of absentee investors. Fiduciary duties. "Capitalism" here usually means duty to maximize shareholders' economic value. Antitrust law. "Capitalism" here, as term is used by self-perceived opponents, usually refers to corporate bigness. Etc. Was Thomas Jefferson capitalist? He hated bigness in all forms. Was Thomas Paine capitalist? He thought rule of first possession was useful because easy to administer but proposed something akin to universal basic income. Important to be clear, as many others have noted in the comments.
carsongross 10y ago
“The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong about what is right.” ― G.K. Chesterton
Grue3 10y ago
A majority of millennials are idiots. News at 11.
- dang 10y ago
  Would you please not post uncivil and unsubstantive comments to HN?
mindcrash 10y ago
Yes, because a society based on Marxism will be so much better. Because that is the big idea right? Marxism? But these millenials who seem to think they are all smarter than everybody else forget one thing: of all the things we tried capitalism and democracy are the least destructive forms of governing society. Or as Jordan Peterson, a tenured psychologist, has stated several times already: "Those who claim 'With us this time it (Marxism) will become so much better' have no idea what they are talking about"
EJTH 10y ago
Sure they reject capitalism when they are asked, but will gladly buy an iPhone or other consumer electronics designed to fail within a few years of normal usage. They will gladly post all their private information to Facebook for that warm fuzzy feeling of people liking their updates, while they are being datamined and their profiling sold to advertisers. But when asked, then sure everyone is against capitalism.
oliwarner 10y ago
I don't think this is anything particularly new. There's a pretty old saying (that is constantly mis-attributed[1]): > If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain. Within a capitalist society, young people on the whole have less, but have to work for everything. After a decade or two working to earn stuff, you feel like other people should do that too. You can chase the reasons why down a million psychological rabbit holes. That said, there's no reason why this would not be more true now than it ever has been before. Adjusting for inflation, we're paid the same as our parents but houses and rent is 10× what it was for them. (At least in the UK) the post-war decade-long housing boom flooded the market with cheap but good stock. Councils used to build for their own social care, and these eventually went on the market too. Now we only get mega-developers holding land until they get approval for high-density crappy houses. That's a very distinct shift from socialised building projects to capitalist building. And it's skewed our entire economy, and really hobbles anybody on a lower income without a house to inherit. [1]: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/
jitix 10y ago
This article seems to be based on a small sample size. As an anecdotal evidence, most millenials that I've met (I'm 29) are very pro-capitalism but are liberals. In 2017 you should not mix the two - you can have a capitalist economy that provides universal healthcare and education, and eventually even UBI.
- zurn 10y ago
  The article is paraphrasing a poll that was done by Harvard Institute of Politics, that had 771 18-29 year old responders. I think that is a reasonable sample size for this kind of poll.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

The problem with whishing for socialism in a divided democracy is that the owners will align with any dictator available to keep what they gained. So higher taxation and redistribution within legal boundaries is discussable. Disowning is destroying the democracy and a sure way to start a civill war.

tmoot 10y ago

It seems like publishing standards have really sank.

ssalazar 10y ago
Capitalism at work!

friedman23 10y ago

Most people do not even understand what capitalism is thanks to the term becoming conflated with greed. And as the poll shows, not supporting capitalism doesn't mean supporting socialism.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
Keynesian demand side capitalism has proved to be great. Unregulated supply side economics appears to lead to massive exploitation and monopolies. That being said socialism and capitalism work together everyday in America. See highways, education, plumbing, etc. It has been argued that Socialism/government regulation is needed for Capitalism to work optimally.
- friedman23 10y ago
  If we are going to call every government with a highway system and a free healthcare system socialist the word becomes meaningless.
Gustomaximus 10y ago
To be fair, people who understand capitalism will still debate what it is.
- twblalock 10y ago
  That's why this poll isn't very useful.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

tabeth 10y ago

In my experience, people who criticize this article are probably benefiting from "capitalism" (the majority of people on here, I reckon, do), meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. That being said, capitalism and having things like free healthcare and education are hardly mutually exclusive. So I think the article's conclusion, "In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy...", (more the poll) are a bit misleading. Here's the actual poll, by the way: http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/ http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publ... Thanks to twblalock for including the recent poll: http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po.. http://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/harvard-iop-spring-2016-po....

friedman23 10y ago
I can tell you that if you asked the poorest in America if they believed private ownership of property should be illegal in the US they would disagree. Socialism to most Americans is free healthcare and college. Capitalism is lobbying and the abuse of government sponsored monopolies.
- eyeownyde 10y ago
  Which is unfortunate, because government involvement in business is a socialist idea, not a capitalist one.
  - pjmorris 10y ago
    Who enforces capitalist property rights?
    - friedman23 10y ago
      Historically property rights were defended by the owner.
      - 10y ago

dsacco 10y ago

This article is a lot of fluff. It opens with a survey that finds a majority of millenials do not agree with capitalism. Then it tempers that with the acknowledgement that "capitalism means different things to different people" and that it's unclear if respondents favor another system more, or just don't support anything. Finally, it sort of meanders around with different people weighing in on what this might mean or what the cause could be. Nothing really...happened here. It would be nice to see an article (or survey) that does a few things better than this: 1. Engages with both the material and millenials in an intellectually satisfying and nuanced way. Millenials are spoken about here not as members of the conversation, but as specimens. Furthermore, there's frankly not a lot of rigor in figuring out why millenials might not approve of capitalism other than the garden variety "first-pass" analyses you can read elsewhere. 2. Establishes greater rigor in both terminology and discovery. Maybe "capitalism" should have been defined more rigorously in the study. Maybe questions should have been less leading and asked about alternatives if capitalism is not satisfactory to the respondents. 3. Attempts to develop real conclusions instead of polarizing ones. Maybe the survey shouldn't have asked about "capitalism" at all, but instead asked about specific policies in a bipartisan manner. Avoiding the difficulties that make mistakes in my #2 point would be a significant improvement. In fact, at this point I'm not sure if the goal was to honestly engage with the material or millenials at all at this point, or if there is an agenda for pushing out articles that paint huge demographics with such a broad brush. I don't like feeling that way or questioning this, but it doesn't feel like a real attempt was made here. I honestly left this piece without being able to make any real conclusions. I'm a millenial myself, so take that for what it's worth.

mc32 10y ago

So, what they really mean is that they want less globalization... rather then less capitalism... and we know many older voters also voted for less globalization... so it's like both young and old, stung by globalization and financial crises want to retrench?

pizza 10y ago
Why would they want greater capitalism with less globalization? Wouldn't that be de facto less capitalist?
- sverige 10y ago
  The opposing forces are not globalism vs. capitalism, but rather globalism vs. sovereign statism. It's more about the form of government than the mode of the economy.
nostrademons 10y ago
That doesn't follow from the article. What it said, explicitly, was they want less crony capitalism. Globalization itself isn't bad. Globalization where the playing field is rigged so that you need to be a billion-dollar corporation to participate in the spoils is.
- mc32 10y ago
  On the one hand globalization is good --despite cries of "imperialism" globalization has done more to deliver people from abject poverty than anything else --I'd argue much better than if native socialism had taken place and disallowed "imperialistic" global companies from setting foot. Even the Doles and Chiquitas, much maligned for making banana republics out of countries, had a positive impact on those countries... See the alternatives, Bolivia, Paraguay, Myanmar, Nepal, etc. countries where these imperialistic global companies did not set foot and "exploit" the locals. On the other hand, it does take away from the poor people in developed countries like the US, Japan, the UK, Australia, South Korea, etc. when their economies seek out cheaper labor to make their economies work. If we didn't have imported labor for farm workers for example, we might pay more for grocery goods, etc but we'd have people who are currently out of a job making some money working on farms --working on farms _isn't that much worse_ than working at a McD or Walmart. It's be kind of like grocery goods are in Japan --good quality, but expensive picked by their own farm workers -with the aid of automation. In addition to that, Globalization has not only enabled seeking cheap labor but also seeking "cheap" regulation and government through globalization. And these kids of things either enable or exacerbate things like the financial crises.

salesguy222 10y ago

Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the lives and wellbeings of others. if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to hear how!

Clubber 10y ago
Term limits to check-and-balance power is a pretty good solution. The trick is to make them long enough so good people can do good things, but short enough so that bad people can't do permanent damage.
gremlinsinc 10y ago
Part 1: Caps on Exec pay - 25x avg salary for first x # of employees, as you add more employees over your baseline that multiplier goes up for example every 1000 employees = 1x so hire 10k and now you're able to earn 35x median wage -- i.e. more employees = more money for execs, as wages increase that also = more money for execs. That handles the corporate side of the corruption. Part 2: Enact the Anti-corruption act in every governmental capacity from mayorships to congress to ban all money in politics. Part 3: Members of congress can earn no more than the average salary of an American Citizen, and their healthcare plan is--the same as the average American w/ no perks above what American's get. Part 4: Term limits for congress, not life-time bans, but you can only server in congress non-congruent terms, meaning you can't serve back to back, someone else has to take your place for a term. More lifeblood bled into congress can't be a bad thing.
- dustinblake 10y ago
  There's a major problem with term limits. Let's say we fix the House of Representatives so that instead of constantly having to run for (re)election with two year terms, we change them to 4 year terms but limit them to 2. Ignoring the major changes that the committee chair/assignment system would require, no longer having a wide range of seniority, the entire body would suffer because the most experienced any legislator could be would be those elected to their second term, i.e. years 5-8 of their House career. Why is this not good? Who also resides in Washington DC and interacts with legislators, with virtually no limits on their length of involvement in this game? Lobbyists. You set up a system where the Legislators are effectively perpetual newbies with an extremely broad scope of issues they must interact with and influence for the best. Lobbyists with just a decade of experience will know far more than any legislator. There's already a lot of legislation is introduced that's provided verbatim from lobbyists... expect that to get worse, not better, with an even more inexperienced elected officials. We already have a system of term limits, it's called electing someone else. Don't make it impossible to keep an excellent legislator who has the broad support of their constituents; make it easier to elect someone new to replace a bad one. With the insane costs of campaigning and getting elected, we'd all be better served by simply reducing that barrier to a minimum. Publicly funded campaigns also remove the influence of financial contributions.

schoen 10y ago

(2016) I'm curious what the results would be for "free enterprise", "free markets", or "private property".

pizza 10y ago

Maybe the way to read this is "willingness to embrace innovative alternatives to the stagnation of current financial systems"

Tokkemon 10y ago

My grandfather had to live under communist rule. Capitalism is fantastic compared.

perseusprime11 10y ago

Did we not learn that Capitalism failed a long time ago? Why else will we have an Insurance system that is deeply incentivized to not cover your conditions? Why else will we have an Education system that is deeply incentivized to profit off your education and put you in debt for your life?

twblalock 10y ago
You may not like capitalism, but it is an indisputable fact that capitalist societies have higher standards of living, including for the poor, than societies that use any other economic system. By that standard, it's more successful than any other system, and hardly a failure, despite what other problems is has. By the way, the problems you describe about insurance (I assume you mean health insurance) and the high cost of education are not characteristics of most capitalist economies. The United States is an outlier in those areas. Plenty of other capitalist countries have universal health care and free education. Plenty of others have universal health care and non-free education. Only the US has the double-whammy of expensive health care and expensive education.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  How does Universal Health care and Free education play into the principles of capitalism?
Clubber 10y ago
Not every industry has to be capitalist to have a capitalist economy, just like having a pure democracy isn't the only way to have a democratic political system. The trick is finding the bugs and fixing them.

Jotra7 10y ago

So much no true Scotsman about capitalism in here it's not funny.

twblalock 10y ago

This is like those surveys that show a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare, but a majority favor almost all of the individual policies that comprise Obamacare when the word "Obamacare" does not appear in the survey. What I would like to see is a survey that asks people their opinions on certain characteristics of capitalism, without mentioning the word "capitalism." I think the results would be very different.

waisbrot 10y ago
But it's interesting to see that "capitalism" is becoming a dirty word, when in the cold-war era it was the opposite of "communism" which was a synonym for "evil".
- twblalock 10y ago
  Yet "socialism" is an even dirtier word according to the survey results. What we really have here are young people who are fed up with the low level of economic opportunity available to them, relative to the level of opportunity they expected to have.
  - mindcrash 10y ago
    You are not looking for the word "socialism". The word you are looking for has the highest approval rating in this poll. Then everything makes sense.
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  During the Cold War, Americans opposing communism believed they were standing up for "freedom" and "democracy"--not capitalism. People today get so caught up in economic arguments that they overlook the fact that communism was a system of government during the Cold War... a system that required censorship and oppression to maintain power. The word "capitalist" has never been embraced broadly as a social movement in the U.S. Its earliest usages in the U.S. were largely pejorative, by socialists and communists attempting to highlight differences. Even today, people who create and accumulate capital in the U.S. rarely refer to themselves as "capitalists." They call themselves entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, executives, businesspeople, investors, etc.

mrschwabe 10y ago

Reject taxation and monopolization, not capitalism.

astrange 10y ago
Personally, I'm okay with two of those.
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smokestack 10y ago
And accept inequality and luck.

Gustomaximus 10y ago

The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric, and more people are seeing merit of using blends of governance than pure free market. People 50 years ago had to support one system of face real consequences. We can now debate the merit of concepts like "privatise luxury, socialise necessity" without being a 'commie bastard'. With the irony being socialist policy was far more in place and accepted 60 years ago when people were so anti-Russia and communism/socialism. I really hope nations leaders can hear this because if they keep pushing people down with income disparity, access to a reasonable living and opportunity the pressure will build up for a bigger push-back, and potentially something dangerous if driven by anger/desperation rather than a common will to succeed. I feel this is one of many strengths of democracy where it should allow pressure values to pop safely and society realign much earlier and easily than other government styles.

edblarney 10y ago
"The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric" I can hardly believe that anyone who was alive during the 'cold war' would ever say that. I grew up in an immigrant community in Canada, and most of my friends fled those disastrous, oppressive and totalitarian 'communist paradises' all over E. Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba - and also - Sweden, by the way. Nordic countries were extremely socialist during the 1950's to mid 1980's. If you were to try to say this in front of my friend's parents, they'd 'trigger', and kick you right out of the house in anger. My uncle escaped Communist Hungary as a boy, literally, at night, running through the forest with soldiers chasing he and his mother. I also remember the very real threat of a nuclear holocaust, in the 1970's to late 1980's it was a very, very real and tangible things. You can try to 'debate', that's all fine, but communist utopian (read: dystopian) ideals seemed pushed by young naive people in every generation. It's almost as though they don't grasp the lessons of history. There'll always be need for 'constant vigilance' against oppression by capital, fleeced consumers etc. - but socialism and especially communism are unmitigated disasters. Communists are definitely 'dirty'. They represent, in reality - the world's greatest movement of mass murder and oppression. The paradox of the constant attraction to communism lies in their apparent goodwill: hey, who wouldn't want 'equality' and 'food for everyone' , yada, yada? Sounds great! Reality is a little harder and sometimes takes time to grasp. "privatise luxury, socialise necessity". Defining 'luxury and necessity' is the root of that statement. In Poland, just before the fall of communism, they had only Vanilla, Chocolate and 'Pink' ice-cream, because anything else was bourgeois (i.e. a luxury), and banned. In Bulgaria, there was no ice-cream. :) Food is definitely on some level a 'necessity' and we definitely have not socialized that. Maybe we can make sure everyone gets healthcare without socializing too hard as well.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

Arise ye prisoners of starvation! Arise ye wretched of the Earth. For justice thunders condemnation, a better world in birth. I mean, sure, most Millenials probably equate capitalism with neoliberalism and socialism with social-democracy, but hey, given that interpretation, yeah, neoliberalism has ruined quite a lot of our lives.

gydfi 10y ago

Like most arguments about "isms" that do not have a single, rigorous definition accepted by everybody, debates about "capitalism" are pretty useless. Karl Marx means one thing by the word, Ayn Rand means another, most other people in between have other ideas (or vague fuzzy feelings) about it, and yet everybody talks as if their own idea matches someone else's.

jstewartmobile 10y ago

I think the rub is that the public debate confuses the triumph of the old British system of aristocracy and privilege with "capitalism". Just as they had the "corn laws" in the early 19th century, we have pharmaceutical import bans, region coding, the "dutch sandwich" and many many other privileges to keep the winners winning with a minimum of effort. If that's what passes for capitalism, who wouldn't reject it? People spend too much time debating economic systems when the fundamental problem is a public neglect of equal justice under the law.

smokestack 10y ago
Equal opportunity, not "equal justice under law". Capitalism favors those who are lucky. It's nothing to do with law. Edit: who wouldn't reject these things if they weren't benefiting from them (vast majority of people)?
- jstewartmobile 10y ago
  It has everything to do with the law. If a small bank got into the insurance business prior to financial services dereg of 1999, it would have been crucified by the feds. Citibank and Travelers did exactly that, but since our justice and regulatory structures are pay-for-play, and their market capitalizations were high enough, they were able to proceed without controversy. On an individual level, our prison population is disproportionately black, and disproportionately locked up on minor charges with an inadequate defense. A prison stay has far-reaching consequences on wealth, employment, and social status. As a small business person, if I were to copy an idea from Apple (like, say rounded corners), they would sue me into the ground (I think their suit with Samsung is already over $1B). If they were to steal my idea, I would go broke on attorneys fees long before I ever got to a courtroom. Equal opportunity isn't worth much without equal justice under the law. You'd have a good run, only to have the house take back all the winnings in the end.

squarefoot 10y ago

Capitalism per se isn't wrong, but becomes extremely dangerous if left uncontrolled as it is today. What is very wrong and dangerous with capitalism is the lack of a line dictating when an entity should stop amassing power and wealth, especially when limited resources are involved. You can print infinite money but you can't create infinite land as the planet surface isn't infinite, which one day will lead us to the point when a few extremely rich people will own the entire Earth surface.

known 10y ago

Millennials are confused; Unlike capitalism, globalization is zero-sum;

known 10y ago

Millennials are thinking Capitalism is a hindrance to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

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raleighm 10y ago

Issues it would be helpful to unbundle when talking about capitalism: Contract law. "Capitalism" here usually means private voluntary agreements are very sacred or absolutely sacred. Property law. "Capitalism" here usually means a rule of first possession. Tax law. "Capitalism" here usually means a presumption against taxation, especially if redistributive in purpose. Limited liability. "Capitalism" here usually means possibility of absentee investors. Fiduciary duties. "Capitalism" here usually means duty to maximize shareholders' economic value. Antitrust law. "Capitalism" here, as term is used by self-perceived opponents, usually refers to corporate bigness. Etc. Was Thomas Jefferson capitalist? He hated bigness in all forms. Was Thomas Paine capitalist? He thought rule of first possession was useful because easy to administer but proposed something akin to universal basic income. Important to be clear, as many others have noted in the comments.

carsongross 10y ago

“The Reformer is always right about what's wrong. However, he's often wrong about what is right.” ― G.K. Chesterton

Grue3 10y ago

A majority of millennials are idiots. News at 11.

dang 10y ago
Would you please not post uncivil and unsubstantive comments to HN?

mindcrash 10y ago

Yes, because a society based on Marxism will be so much better. Because that is the big idea right? Marxism? But these millenials who seem to think they are all smarter than everybody else forget one thing: of all the things we tried capitalism and democracy are the least destructive forms of governing society. Or as Jordan Peterson, a tenured psychologist, has stated several times already: "Those who claim 'With us this time it (Marxism) will become so much better' have no idea what they are talking about"

EJTH 10y ago

Sure they reject capitalism when they are asked, but will gladly buy an iPhone or other consumer electronics designed to fail within a few years of normal usage. They will gladly post all their private information to Facebook for that warm fuzzy feeling of people liking their updates, while they are being datamined and their profiling sold to advertisers. But when asked, then sure everyone is against capitalism.

oliwarner 10y ago

I don't think this is anything particularly new. There's a pretty old saying (that is constantly mis-attributed[1]): > If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain. Within a capitalist society, young people on the whole have less, but have to work for everything. After a decade or two working to earn stuff, you feel like other people should do that too. You can chase the reasons why down a million psychological rabbit holes. That said, there's no reason why this would not be more true now than it ever has been before. Adjusting for inflation, we're paid the same as our parents but houses and rent is 10× what it was for them. (At least in the UK) the post-war decade-long housing boom flooded the market with cheap but good stock. Councils used to build for their own social care, and these eventually went on the market too. Now we only get mega-developers holding land until they get approval for high-density crappy houses. That's a very distinct shift from socialised building projects to capitalist building. And it's skewed our entire economy, and really hobbles anybody on a lower income without a house to inherit. [1]: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/

jitix 10y ago

This article seems to be based on a small sample size. As an anecdotal evidence, most millenials that I've met (I'm 29) are very pro-capitalism but are liberals. In 2017 you should not mix the two - you can have a capitalist economy that provides universal healthcare and education, and eventually even UBI.

zurn 10y ago
The article is paraphrasing a poll that was done by Harvard Institute of Politics, that had 771 18-29 year old responders. I think that is a reasonable sample size for this kind of poll.

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