Why Socialism?

Why are today’s young people so enamoured of socialism? Why the appeal of a superannuated crank like Bernie Sanders or a hectoring schoolmarm like Elizabeth Warren?

Didn’t social fail miserably every time it has been tried? Didn’t radical socialism destroy more lives in a shorter period of time than any political concoction in human history? Why do people keep coming back to socialism, thus to a government that will take care of them? To be fair, today’s young people do not know what socialism is. They have been so poorly educated that they do not know its record.

They see socialism as limitless free stuff. And they see it as an extension of life at home with Mom and Dad, but especially with Mom. They see socialism as a perpetual Nanny state… one that will allow them to do as they please, when they please, with whom they please… without exacting a price. 

Besides, they have learned that capitalism is evil, that it is predatory and oppressive, and that all capitalists are bigots.

These young people have been taught to be permanent children. They have been disabused and disembarrassed of any tendency to compete in the marketplace, to say nothing of the arena or the battlefield. As you know, competition bespeaks patriarchy. It bespeaks inequality… because some will win and some will lose.

And besides, when you win at competition you will be making the losing team feel bad. And, in our therapied nation, we cannot have that. Hurting someone’s feelings is a crime. Since success in competition will necessarily hurt the feelings of those who failed… we must eliminate success. Everyone should get a trophy. Everyone should have high self-esteem.

If it feels like permanent childhood, that’s because it is permanent childhood. 

A young person himself, David Grasso writes in The New York Post (via Maggie’s Farm) that young people are drawn to socialism because they cannot compete. Or better, because they were trained not to compete. They have been disembarrassed of the character traits that make for a good competitor. They are drowning in empathy and believe that they can solve it all by getting in touch with their feelings. Discipline and self-control are alien notions. Sucking it up for the team is so yesterday. Being humble in victory and gracious in defeat-- look at today’s politics and you will join me in bemoaning those lost virtues.

In Grasso’s words:

Millennials grew up in an age of college-prep academics, where the only choice was to go to a college or university. We took this journey on the faith that a college education would give us the necessary skills to kick-start our careers.

After graduation, we quickly found out that our alma maters did little to prepare us to be job-ready. Millions of young Americans are now trapped in underemployment or unemployment in their industry of choice.

Just as we get our first student-loan bill, we find ourselves navigating unpaid and low-paid internships that are often a dead end professionally.

Note the second paragraph. Colleges and universities are no longer preparing young people to join the workforce. They are not teaching the skills needed to compete and to win. They are indoctrinating young people in a radical leftist ideology. If they refuse to accept it, they will flunk out. Compared with their Asian peers, today’s young American college graduates are born-again losers.

Worse yet, if you were expecting that the male cohort would be more inclined to go out and compete in the world, you would be wrong. Some of them have found the right level of competition playing video games, but the rest have learned to be more like women.

Because if they are too manly they will turn into hostile predators, taking unfair advantage of their masculine privilege. It's worse if they are white. If their wives have children they will need to take time off to change diapers. In a world that does not even recognize the gross disparity between male and female parenting roles, women often choose to take time off from work in order to bring up their children. And men, not wanting to appear not to understand that there is no difference between men and women, will also take time off. They do not want to be patriarchal breadwinners so they empathize by compromising their own career advancement in order not to feel like… God help us… men.

Worse yet, their college educations have also taught them that they should not feel even the least twinge of patriotism… lest they be denounced for bigotry. But that also means that they should not feel the least twinge of loyalty to their nation… but also to their company. Forget teamwork, forget working for the common good to a common purpose. Given that kind of attitude, given the failure to take pride in being Americans, these young people are lost. They have been so thoroughly infantilized that they will probably never be able to compete.

One remarks that, in big bad China, the government has forced large numbers of ethnic Muslims into re-education camps… the better to force them to assimilate into Chinese culture. It is not the only thing that the government has done to force assimilation, but it will serve our purpose for now.

Naturally, we disapprove heartily.

And yet, that is not the point. Whether or not we disapprove is off the point. We might puff ourselves up and proudly claim not to practice such barbarities in our very own liberal democracy. And yet… and yet… we send our children to another type of re-education camp… the American university system. True enough, no one is forcing them to go, but, you know as well as I do, that not going to college is simply not an option.

So, children are not forced to go to college, but it is mandatory. At least we feel like our children have a choice. And then, children arrive at these colleges and universities ready to learn how to become functioning members of the work force, to earn a living and to have good lives. Is that what they are really learning?

Don’t even think it, bunky. Colleges and universities do not teach students how best to assimilate into the greater American culture. They teach them how to de-assimilate, how to be ashamed of their nation, how to feel guilty for all of its sins, both real and imagined.

Higher education has long since given up the goal of character building. It does not want students to be proud Americans. And it does not want them to join the corporate juggernaut that has made America the world’s leading hegemon. It tells them that good character and success are bad. It teaches them that working hard to earn victory will compromise their mental health. It teaches them to feel contented with mediocrity and to spend their time whining in their Chardonnay. 

They aren’t even smart enough to understand that at some point, as Margaret Thatcher so aptly said, socialism fails because you run out of other people’s money. The lure of socialism is the lure of perpetual childhood, bereft of responsibility, coddled and swaddled, incapable of taking their place in the worlds of work and civic responsibility. 

And thus, they are drawn to political candidates who give them everything while demanding nothing of them. They find this appealing because, in the end, they have so little to give.