Young Americans Reject Capitalism

[Playball40]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-shows/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.
The Harvard University survey, which polled young adults between ages 18 and 29, found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Just 42 percent said they support it.
....
"The word 'capitalism' doesn't mean what it used to," said Zach Lustbader, a senior at Harvard involved in conducting the poll, which was published Monday. For those who grew up during the Cold War, capitalism meant freedom from the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes. For those who grew up more recently, capitalism has meant a financial crisis from which the global economy still hasn't completely recovered.



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And of course, right wingers on talk radio, TV et al telling us repeatedly that anything good and progressive is "socialism".

That's not surprising. What do younger people know about hard work to earn a dollar! They expect government handouts at every turn. Progressives equate with socialism. Look at Bernie Sanders supporters, mostly from that age group.

Define "hard work".

 

[iolo]

That's not surprising. What do younger people know about hard work to earn a dollar! ...

Evidence?

All this talk about "hard work" I find silly. Why is easy work supposed to be so horrible? As long as it is productive, why is it supposed to be a horrible sin?

Anyway, I find that those over here who blather on about 'hard-working people' are always those like Cameron and his Chancellor (whose name escapes me) have never done a day's identifiable work in their lives.

 

[SimpleDon]

The answer to the implied question, "why are the young rejecting capitalism?" is in the final paragraph of the article;

"They're not rejecting the concept," Della Volpe said. "The way in which capitalism is practiced today, in the minds of young people — that's what they're rejecting."

For example, the article quotes a poll in which only 30% "think the government should play a large role in reducing income inequality."

A more realistic question would be ”Should the government continue its large role in creating income inequality?"

 

[coloradoatheist]

I think it's very easy to think nowadays that hey since we are getting a lot of things free why can't everything be free, there is no scarcity any more.


It is funny when we are at a time when not taking money from someone is considered redistributing that money to them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think it's very easy to think nowadays that hey since we are getting a lot of things free why can't everything be free, there is no scarcity any more.

It is funny when we are at a time when not taking money from someone is considered redistributing that money to them.

I'm a late bloomer Gen X'er. All I know is that when I graduated from college, I could find a job, college was expensive but feasible, open a savings account that had a rate around 5%, and the stock market hadn't taken a massive crap except for a day spell back in '97 or '98.

These days, media is so open and free, but a lot of the opportunities I had available don't exist as much as it did not 15 years ago.

These days college is more expensive, harder to get into, corporations are using slave labor (interns) to do more work, and still haven't hired back to pre-Recession levels, savings rates are so pitiful to almost be not worth it.

 

[SimpleDon]

I think it's very easy to think nowadays that hey since we are getting a lot of things free why can't everything be free, there is no scarcity any more.


It is funny when we are at a time when not taking money from someone is considered redistributing that money to them.

No, relieving people of a portion of their previous obligation to support the government, providing them with free what they previously had to pay for and suppressing the wages of others to provide more income from the profits generated by the wage suppression are redistributions of income.

There is ample evidence of capitalism's tendency to concentrate the income and the wealth generated by the economy in progressively fewer hands to establish that demand must be supported and income and wealth must be redistributed from the rich to everyone else. Or else income and wealth inequality keeps growing, as has happened over the last thirty five years in the US.

 

[Trausti]

I think it's very easy to think nowadays that hey since we are getting a lot of things free why can't everything be free, there is no scarcity any more.


It is funny when we are at a time when not taking money from someone is considered redistributing that money to them.

No, relieving people of a portion of their previous obligation to support the government, providing them with free what they previously had to pay for and suppressing the wages of others to provide more income from the profits generated by the wage suppression are redistributions of income.

There is ample evidence of capitalism's tendency to concentrate the income and the wealth generated by the economy in progressively fewer hands to establish that demand must be supported and income and wealth must be redistributed from the rich to everyone else. Or else income and wealth inequality keeps growing, as has happened over the last thirty five years in the US.

??? How do you know a person suppressed another's wages? Seems like you're inventing a self-righteous excuse to take from someone who has been more successful than you. I guess with enough mental exercises you can justify anything. But please don't dress up your envy as moral or fair.

 

[lpetrich]

??? How do you know a person suppressed another's wages?

It's often called "lowering labor costs".

Seems like you're inventing a self-righteous excuse to take from someone who has been more successful than you. I guess with enough mental exercises you can justify anything. But please don't dress up your envy as moral or fair.

So if you don't like being stolen from, that means that you envy thieves? They are more successful than their victims, so punishing them is punishing success, right?

Does objecting to the Leona Helmsley philosophy of taxation mean that you are envious? She believed that "only the little people pay taxes" or ought to, and she then lowered taxes on herself by her own initiative, rather than begging the government to do so.

 

[angelo]

That's not surprising. What do younger people know about hard work to earn a dollar! ...

Evidence?

All this talk about "hard work" I find silly. Why is easy work supposed to be so horrible? As long as it is productive, why is it supposed to be a horrible sin?

Any kind of work is fine. It's those who demand hand outs that's the problem.

 

[bilby]

Evidence?

All this talk about "hard work" I find silly. Why is easy work supposed to be so horrible? As long as it is productive, why is it supposed to be a horrible sin?

Any kind of work is fine. It's those who demand hand outs that's the problem.

That depends. Are people demanding handouts because despite there being more jobs than workers, they refuse to work; or are they demanding handouts because there are more workers than jobs, and they are the unlucky ones who didn't have a chair when the music stopped?

In the latter case, their options are handouts, crime, or starvation.

Handouts seem like the least worst of those three to me.

 

[Canard DuJour]

In an apparent rejection of the basic principles of the U.S. economy, a new poll shows that most young people do not support capitalism.

That's not surprising. What do younger people know about hard work to earn a dollar!

Probably more than their parents who could support a family on a single wage.

Grandparents even.

 

[arkirk]

View attachment 6571

She wrote it on an Iphone made at Foxcon in China...by suicidal slave labor. Yeah! Stevo your brilliant majesty shit...the message was on an Iphone. So what? I know genius Steve is dead yet the exchange would be likely if he were alive.

 

[angelo]

Any kind of work is fine. It's those who demand hand outs that's the problem.

That depends. Are people demanding handouts because despite there being more jobs than workers, they refuse to work; or are they demanding handouts because there are more workers than jobs, and they are the unlucky ones who didn't have a chair when the music stopped?

In the latter case, their options are handouts, crime, or starvation.

Handouts seem like the least worst of those three to me.

Wasn't this bound to happen because of union power and greed? How many workers have priced themselves out of a job do you think? I can think of one example atm. Toyota, before deciding to stop building cars in Australia pointed out to union leaders. [ they weren't allowed to negotiate with the auto workers directly] That it cost something like $3000 AUD more to build a Camry here in Australia than the equivalent car could be built in Europe. They weren't trying to lower the pay rates, but to have a more flexible, less perks workforce. The unions refused with Toyota announcing the closure of it's auto manufacturing here in 2017-18 within weeks of the negotiations.

 

[iolo]

That depends. Are people demanding handouts because despite there being more jobs than workers, they refuse to work; or are they demanding handouts because there are more workers than jobs, and they are the unlucky ones who didn't have a chair when the music stopped?

In the latter case, their options are handouts, crime, or starvation.

Handouts seem like the least worst of those three to me.

Wasn't this bound to happen because of union power and greed? How many workers have priced themselves out of a job do you think? I can think of one example atm. Toyota, before deciding to stop building cars in Australia pointed out to union leaders. [ they weren't allowed to negotiate with the auto workers directly] That it cost something like $3000 AUD more to build a Camry here in Australia than the equivalent car could be built in Europe. They weren't trying to lower the pay rates, but to have a more flexible, less perks workforce. The unions refused with Toyota announcing the closure of it's auto manufacturing here in 2017-18 within weeks of the negotiations.

Trade Unions exist to look after their members, just as capitalist exist to look after themselves and steal. Capitalist backers, like this poster, detest workers' rights and long for a police state.

 

[angelo]

Wasn't this bound to happen because of union power and greed? How many workers have priced themselves out of a job do you think? I can think of one example atm. Toyota, before deciding to stop building cars in Australia pointed out to union leaders. [ they weren't allowed to negotiate with the auto workers directly] That it cost something like $3000 AUD more to build a Camry here in Australia than the equivalent car could be built in Europe. They weren't trying to lower the pay rates, but to have a more flexible, less perks workforce. The unions refused with Toyota announcing the closure of it's auto manufacturing here in 2017-18 within weeks of the negotiations.

Trade Unions exist to look after their members, just as capitalist exist to look after themselves and steal. Capitalist backers, liked this poster, detest workers' rights and long for a police state.

The word is balance. Not a one way street to ruin!

 

[bilby]

Trade Unions exist to look after their members, just as capitalist exist to look after themselves and steal. Capitalist backers, liked this poster, detest workers' rights and long for a police state.

The word is balance. Not a one way street to ruin!

Indeed. Which leaves me wondering why you persistently advocate for just such a one-way street.

 

[iolo]

Trade Unions exist to look after their members, just as capitalist exist to look after themselves and steal. Capitalist backers, liked this poster, detest workers' rights and long for a police state.

The word is balance. Not a one way street to ruin!

Why do you support your nutty system then? Haven't you had enough world wars?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's not surprising. What do younger people know about hard work to earn a dollar!

Probably more than their parents who could support a family on a single wage.

Grandparents even.

The good ole fashioned, 'The kids these days' fallacy.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

A couple of reasons why young people reject capitalism

1.  Workforce casualization: the process which employment shifts from a preponderance of full-time and permanent positions to casual and contract positions.
2. Deprofessionalization: A process whereby those in high status occupations such as attorneys lose control over their work, rarely are called upon to use their expert knowledge developed through specialized training, and often begin to question or even lose completely their identity as a professional. Link

Work, be it blue collar, white collar, or ring around the collar, is being stripped down and broken down into its component parts and then being auctioned off to the lowest bidders. Those degrees we encouraged our children to get, those professions we assured them would afford them an financially stable and socially rewarding life are becoming a lie and the millennials know it, they can see it because they are living it.

Capitalism is about increasing profits for stockholders, not provision for stakeholders And as one number, as a percentage of the population, goes up (stakeholders) and the other number (stockholders) goes down, it is only a matter of time before the entire system collapses.

 

[coloradoatheist]

The biggest problem capitalism is that it's too successful. Delivering goods to consumers is what capitalism is about.

It's also interesting, that we see commercials that show starving people around the around and they say, just give a cup of coffee a day. But yet, what really gets people out of poverty is jobs, we can't let them have jobs because they aren't American.