Why Do Millennials Seem to Love Socialism?

democratic-socialists-of-americaDespite having lived through the tail end of the Cold War, and having grown up during the hey day of American capitalism, Millennials seem to have some romantic idea about socialism/communism. Andrew Clark, writing at The Wall Street Journal, explains the relationship between Millennials and command economics.

Millennials are one of history’s luckiest generations. We were fortunate to be born around the end of the Cold War a quarter century ago, when the tyrannical Communism embodied in the Soviet Union came tumbling down, also knocking socialism down a few pegs along the way. We have grown up in a world where, for the most part, economic and personal freedom are the rule rather than exception.

And apparently we hate it. How else does one explain why so many millennials seem to long to live in government-run economies, or worse?

A Gallup poll in June 2015 found that almost 70% of U.S. millennials would be willing to vote for a socialist presidential candidate. Even more shocking, a poll conducted before this year’s presidential election by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that barely half of millennials believe “Communism was or is a problem.”

Read more here.

Millennials can’t distinguish Democrats, socialists