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Comment by cmdkeen | Hacker News Reader

A man who has not been a socialist before 25 has no heart. If he remains one after 25 he has no head. — King Oscar II of Sweden

Whilst that's a variant of an older quote there is generally an expectation that 19/20 year olds are going to be more revolutionary than their elders. As a 30 year old who grew up during the 90s capitalism had vanquished communism and was rapidly improving quality of life around the world. Economic growth was assumed and student radicalism went through one of its quieter patches and began to focus much more on equalities and access rather than economic issues.

Today's youth are perhaps returning back to a more traditional model of rebellion against their parents. Be it the 1930s elite becoming communist at Cambridge, French students in the 60s or US students in 1970.

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Alternatively, a rebellion against a system that screwed our parents (loss of labor jobs, mortgage crises) and is now screwing us (student loans, mass youth unemployment, climate change).

Capitalism did a lot of good and then in order to really juice it for everything it had, we let it run wild. Now we're seeing the pendulum swing back. So we agree there, but I don't think it's a matter of youthful rebellion. It's the only logical stance for our generation to take.

From the Sanders/Clinton age divide apparent in exit polls, we might deduce that somewhere between 40 and 50 is the new 25. And to me that makes some sense. Baby boomers grew up in a world where you could get a decent paying blue collar job for life, and buy a house on a single income. You can afford to be individualist when you have that level of security. Young people today don't feel they have that and are looking for an alternative.

Rejection of the current crony capitalism doesn't imply socialism.

A right winger can dislike how it makes markets lazy through government protection, and making entry and exit difficult.

A left winger can criticise the inefficiency of outcomes in monopolistic markets, and the unfairness of outcomes based on initial endowments.

The current status quo is very traditional: those in charge take every opportunity to enrich themselves either legally, illegally or by rigging the law.

This reminds me of my own version of a certain Churchill quote: "Capitalism is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have ever been tried."

Seriously though, as others have pointed out, what we have in the US isn't so much capitalism as crony capitalism: privatized profit with socialized risk. Much of the anti-capitalism/pro-socialism crowd fails to make that distinction, or equates all capitalism with cronyism. Another overlapping portion simply live in a world entirely of theory (social theory, not economic theory), and are historically naive and uninformed about the fact that radical socialism has been tried many times, and had considerably worse failure modes than capitalism has shown thus far.

This article doesn't seem to suggest a widespread adoption of socialist ideology as much as a thorough dissatisfaction with the reality of capitalism today.

It'd be surprising to me if a majority of polled youths did support "capitalism" given the state of affairs (impending climate doom, eternal crisis, unemployment, corruption, inequality).

> there is generally an expectation that 19/20 year olds are going to be more revolutionary than their elders

I'd love to see some references to this statement. A quote from a 19th century Swedish king is hardly compelling evidence.

I think you might be confusing socialism with activism in general.

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