"we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us"
It really should not surprise you that a generation that grew up with the rising wealth of their baby boomer parents (so were used to some comfort), and were suddenly cast into a world as independent adults and yet simultaneously completely fucked over by the Great Recession ... would find things that are drastically different from the current status-quo (e.g., Communism) as appealing.
That being said, most Millennials would not want anything close to actual communism ... I think.
I would say that prospects are always better for those that command expertise in the technology of the day.
Ex: A developer has much better prospects today than in the past. A library probably has the same prospects now as then.
Even working as a burger flipper they can get a degree, move up the management chain, etc.
A couple generations ago people were starving and out of work due to the great depression. We had a recession in 2008, and had no where near the same impact. Just more people on welfare, and people lost money on houses.
Plus, everyone always can be an entrepreneur, which is the source of all our current wealth anyways.
no it isn't
> Even working as a burger flipper they can get a degree
did you get a degree while working a full time job?
> everyone always can be an entrepreneur
no they can't
They're pushing for communism, because it is increasingly apparent that they have been screwed by the existing system from a moment dating to some time before their parents were born, and they'd prefer not to be. Since no other system has been publicized such that it has given them some hope of not being screwed, they are increasingly choosing the option of being slightly less screwed personally at the cost of the whole economy being more screwed.
It's just the Nash equilibrium. Once the voting leverage for screwed people passes a tipping point, their choices will become reality, and everyone who might prefer some other option will have no better chance of a President of the United States trying to get a Supreme Court justice appointed within the last two years of their term, when a unified voting bloc controls Congress.
> But, once adopted into the production process of capital, the means of labour passes through different metamorphoses, whose culmination is the machine, or rather, an automatic system of machinery (system of machinery: the automatic one is merely its most complete, most adequate form, and alone transforms machinery into a system), set in motion by an automaton, a moving power that moves itself;
Early Marx's entire vision is foundationally based on the scarcity labor tipping point you're describing. He wrote a lot more after that as well.
They can see with their own eyes what he could only imagine and speculate upon, and then some. And what they see is that not only are factory-owners richer than non-owners, who aren't really even "workers" any more, but that some owners have insignificant need for labor, and that even they are inferior to the owners of the machine specifications and procedures, the holders of patents and trademarks.
They can also see the output of factories that produce modern war materiel. Pilotless aircraft can carry missiles aloft, linger a while, and then rain fiery hell down upon people who never even knew they were up there. A single bomb can end tens of thousands of lives in a flash of light. Even a single person can unremarkably buy enough firepower from the consumer supply chain to terrorize an entire city for a few hours, from a rented hotel room. A private company can reach orbit. A religious cult can synthesize and deploy chemical weapons. Seaworthy cities, powered by uranium, with miniaturized airfields as their roofs, are becoming obsolete, thanks to machine-controlled weaponry.
Nobody is that visionary, as to predict the politics of a world that has reached the bounds of human imagination, and then continued to progress another 50 years.
When people stay home, and don't go to work--either voluntarily or laid off--for fear of a global pandemic, the stock market still rallies. The event that is as near to a general strike as I have seen in my lifetime is being dismissed as a temporary inconvenience to business owners. We all saw how the former Soviet Republics delivered up all their capital into the arms of a few oligarchs within a matter of years as the former government order crumpled. Who now has the power to wrest control of Gazprom from Vladimir Putin?
The youth in the US need never have even heard the name Marx. They can come by their new brand of communism completely from scratch, just by reflecting upon the history of the last 50 years, and extrapolating the simplest of models into future decades, and onto additional simple models of water use, housing starts, and climate change. It is easy to see that a mere handful of people are looting the entire planet, and if that is allowed to proceed unabated for a few more years, an inflection point will be passed, such that even a concerted, aligned, and organized effort by 99.9% of the human population cannot stop it peacefully via the existing institutions.
* Communism is viewed favorably by 37% of millennials.
* 22% of millennials believe society would be better if private property were abolished.
* 15% of millennials believe the world would be better if the Soviet Union still existed.
Now, a lot are pushing for universal healthcare and similar social safety-net programs. Confusing these two things is a hallmark of either a propogandist or one of their rubes.
For example, does their view of communism allow for some private property or not (and often with some special subset that I've commonly see named personal property instead of private property).
It is also a bit like those who advocate for the free market. Many advocate for a free market. Very few advocate for a market so free that humans can be traded. And there are many products that you will find some think should be regulated within their free market while others do not.
Unfortunately, propaganda (from both sides) has made it synonymous with full blown authoritative Soviet unions style regimens.
Property is supported by the state. Property rights are meaningless if they aren't recognized and enforced legally.
Like I said, "communism" is very broad.
A central theme in communist ideology is that workers own the means of productions. That can have many forms, but does not necessarily lead to a centralized state, like the Soviet one.
EDIT: I find that the bs jobs are a symptom of centralized/privatized means of productions. Which is why I made the "pretend to work" comment. Corp style jobs resemble soviet style labor. Bureaucracies come in many forms. Some look like the USSR, some look like middle management.
They can be enforced illegally as well. Now that can be viewed as a shadow state and a shadow legal system operating within the primary one, but under such a view we would find that the state exists as soon as any two humans work together and as a consequence the common meanings of words become suspect.
I think a better way of looking at it is that property is supported by violence. Civilized society we give rights to that violence to society to deal with those who don't behave because in general it is more efficient for all of us, but if that society betrays our expectations we will resort to violence against even that society itself.
It also isn't just property rights. All basic concepts, including up to the right to life, follow the same pattern. Thus a society that can destroy property rights is free and capable to destroy rights to life or bodily integrity.
The employees in a company form a community. The community of employees owns the company, aka worker owned company. The profits of the company are distributed to the community.
This is a core idea in communism, everyone has a common stake.
Unfortunately, few people on either "side" take the time to look deeply into the movement(s) they support or rally against.