By Samuel Gregg
Monday, July 12,
2021
Young Americans like socialism.
That’s one finding of a new Axios/Momentive poll surveying American attitudes toward topics such as economic
inequality, capitalism and socialism, and government’s role in the economy.
Among Americans aged 18-24, the poll
reports that only 42 percent of those surveyed regardless of political
affiliation have a positive view of capitalism, while 54 percent have a
negative view. Only two years ago, the same polling survey had 58 percent of
the same demographic favoring capitalism, while 38 percent had a negative view.
These changes aren’t just confined to
shifts among younger progressive-leaning Americans. In 2019, 81 percent of
those who leaned Republican, aged 18-34, had a positive opinion of capitalism.
Now, however, only 66 percent of this demographic maintain this view.
Precisely what these younger Americans
have in mind by words such as “socialism” or “capitalism” isn’t discussed in
this poll. Few, I imagine, are thinking of a Stalinist command economy when
they think of socialism. Their opinions more likely reflect concerns about
inequality, a desire to see America become something like a European social
democracy, or a sense that there’s something wrong with 21st-century American
capitalism.
I suspect, however, that sympathies for
socialism also reflect a lack of understanding of what free markets are and,
importantly, what they are not. In my experience, young Americans will often
say that they think the economy is rigged in favor of the privileged and
well-connected. Indeed, they are right to believe so.
What they don’t grasp is that this problem
has little to do with markets and everything to do with the cronyism which
permeates America’s economy. Nor do they recognize that cronyism is enabled by
widespread government intervention in the economy. The bigger the government,
the more likely cronyism will prevail.
Nor is it enough to explain to younger
Americans the ways in which capitalism’s economic performance is infinitely
superior to socialism’s record — or that of European social democracies, for
that matter. Many young people also want to live in an economy which they
regard as just. I can only agree.
This makes it ever more urgent for those
who support free markets to double down on educating young Americans in the
economic and moral case for capitalism. It means taking them
through the writings of the very best free-market thinkers — people such as
Adam Smith, Wilhelm Röpke, F. A. Hayek, and Michael Novak — who didn’t hesitate
to defend markets on economic and moral grounds.
But it also means answering their
questions about the issues preoccupying them, whether it is concerns about what
they see as unjust wealth and income inequalities, or fears that free trade
weakens America vis-a-vis our enemies.
In early June, I had an opportunity to
take precisely such a group of young Americans from different backgrounds and
political viewpoints through a crash course in the morality and economics of
markets under the auspices of The Heritage Foundation. All the participants had
some knowledge of economics, but only limited exposure to classic free-market
texts and thinkers.
In many cases, they accepted that markets
were more efficient and effective in generating wealth than the alternatives.
For the most part, however, they had never heard the philosophical arguments
for markets laid out by people such as Smith, Röpke, Hayek, and Novak.
Among other things, understanding these
arguments involves explaining that self-interest, as understood by Adam Smith,
is not the same as greed, and showing that socialism could only work if
governments were capable of knowing everything going on in the economy at any
moment in time all the time. But perhaps the most decisive argument for markets
that resonated with the students was what I’ll call a morally realist
understanding of human nature.
Say, for example, you view humans as
beings with reason and free will, who alone among all the Earth’s species
possess the gift of creativity, who are simultaneously individual and social,
who are driven to a considerable degree by self-interest, who are capable of
moral greatness but also prone to error, and who can’t know everything. If you
believe these things, you will surely arrive at very different economic
conclusions than someone who doesn’t, deep down, believe that humans are free,
creative, capable of knowing and choosing the truth, but also self-interested
and fallible.
Therein lies the recipe for explaining to
younger Americans why markets work and socialism fails. Socialism is grounded
upon a conception of human beings which is, in a word, false. It denies human
individuality, liberty, and fallibility, and thus ends up oppressing people. By
contrast, capitalism pays attention to realities about human nature which never
change.
That is the message which I have discovered resonates with young
Americans and inoculates them against socialism’s lies. It’s also a message
that is as much moral as it is economic.
Socialists learned a long time ago that if
you can win the moral argument, you tend to win hearts and minds, especially
among idealistic young people. Free-marketers need to recognize that winning
the economic argument against socialism simply isn’t enough. They must also
confront socialism’s lies about human nature with the full truth about who
human beings are. Because in the end, it really is the fullness of the truth
that sets us free.
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