The Rise of Millennial Socialism

Millennials are flocking to socialism. A groundbreaking poll conducted by Reason has 42% of Millennials preferring socialism to capitalism. At CNBC, Steve Odland cites data showing that Millennials favor socialism over capitalism. My generation has also created the Sanders Surge, rallying behind a self-avowed Democratic Socialist.

The Millennial tilt towards socialism runs contrary to the defining trait of our generation - that we're the narcissists of Generation Selfie.

Narcissism says "look at me I'm SO special." Socialism says "I shouldn't be allowed to rise much farther above anyone else." If Millennials are so narcissistic, why are many of them running to a political ideology that places the state above the self?

Here's how it happened: Millennials grew up being told that we were special snowflakes, and then got out into the working world and found that, nope, we're not soaring above everyone else. We are everyone else. And some people take this as a personal insult.

If you are still under the Special Snowflake Delusion, it upsets your entire view of the world when someone is doing better in the real world than you. You've been told your whole life that you are special and unique!  So, anybody who is doing better than you, obviously must not deserve it.

Capitalism allows people to get ahead, when a Special Snowflake's ego will tell aforementioned Snowflake that the success of others is undeserved and therefore unfair. Socialism starts to look like the "fairer" option. If you're really into yourself (like many Millennials) and not as financially well-off as you'd hoped (like many Millennials, #thanksObama), then socialism appeals to your ego.

There are simpler reasons, too, that socialism might look good to Millennials. The first one is the hollow promise of free college. These people hear "free" and don't think far enough to realize that "free college" will be enormously expensive. Colleges will crank up the costs, so they can get as much of that sweet government money as possible. Colleges will be incentivized to ratchet up the price AND lower their standards so that everyone can get in and stay in. The value of a college degree will tank.

Another reason for Millennial socialism is that many of us didn't learn history or economics. In a 2014 study of 2,000 young people, only 16% could define socialism accurately. Europe isn't just windmills and crepes, folks, it's rampant unemployment and exorbitantly long waits to see a doctor. But lots of Millennials don't know this. While our parents and grandparents watched the U.S.S.R. crumble, we were watching Sesame Street. 




There are plenty of Millennials who are not socialist. In fact, we're the furthest thing from it - we're entrepreneurs. There's an innovative side to this generation that is powering the future of our economy. Think about the people of Uber, AirBNB, Netflix, even Tinder and Seamless. They're kids in hoodies who are absolutely crushing it in the free market. Anybody like them, or anybody who wants to be like them, is not a socialist.

There are also zillions of Millennials who want to innovate within existing companies. Think about the ones who go to work every day and try to do something different and better than how it was done by their predecessor in that job. That's entrepreneurial, too. 

This drive to compete requires a person to push ego to the side: whenever you compete, you implicitly accept that you might lose. But even if you lose sometimes - the promise of America is that if you continually gain skills, knowledge, and experience, you'll become a better bet in the marketplace, and you'll be likely to pay off big. For a generation that is supposedly in love with itself, we ought to start investing in ourselves. Go after things you can put on a resume as hard as you go after things you can put on Instagram.

Capitalism bets on yourself - socialism bets against others. Young people will place their bets, and we ought to place them on hope and innovation, not on ego and statism.