Across most college campuses, large numbers of students have declared capitalism to be an oppressive failure, yet many of them will buy something frivolous on Amazon by the end of the week.
It’s easy to spout slogans about dismantling the system after growing up surrounded by its abundance. While young people face valid frustrations over housing costs and healthcare, socialism misdiagnoses the disease. Prices aren’t arbitrary numbers dictated by executive greed. They are organic signals driven by supply and demand.
The culprit behind America’s economic mess isn’t the free market. It’s the government’s overreach, incompetence and corruption.
Capitalism works because individuals who adapt to evolving market needs are rewarded. Jeff Bezos wasn’t born a billionaire. He took massive personal risks and ended up building a service that hundreds of millions voluntarily use weekly. Successful innovators shouldn’t be taxed into oblivion to subsidize less productive sectors.
Instituting an extreme wealth tax would cause many millionaires and billionaires to simply leave the country, shifting a massive tax burden directly onto the middle class. France tried this and it was abolished by their current president Emmanuel Macron in 2018.
Advocates of socialism also ignore economic and cultural realities when praising systems like Norway’s. Norway operates a market economy powered by being a global net creditor with the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, a small population and strict immigration laws.
In sharp contrast, the U.S. is the world’s largest net debtor, facing over $60 trillion in unfunded Medicare liabilities alone. Printing more money and expanding government spending is fiscal suicide.
Government is inherently slow and incompetent regardless of party. By the time bureaucrats recognize market needs, it’s too late. Historically, when the state takes control of production, it leads to extreme shortages and, in the case of agriculture, famine. Just look at the governments of Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong, the two people responsible for the most deaths in human history.
Currently, North and South Korea operate under vastly different economic systems. One side faces starvation and the other builds skyscrapers and tech empires.
The rally cry for most socialist candidates is Medicare-for-all, not even a public option. Many Americans have healthcare plans through the free market that are far better than anything the government could ever offer. Centralized healthcare just trades higher costs for lower quality with agonizing and outrageous wait times, as seen in Britain’s system.
Social security is another ridiculous concept where the government thinks it can manage money better than its own citizens, yet its trust fund reserves are projected to be depleted within the next decade. Unless taxes are raised again or benefits are significantly slashed, young people won’t get the promised retirement or disability support they have been paying for.
To fix real issues like wages and housing, supply and demand must be considered rather than simply expanding state power. Importing millions of people, legally or illegally, during an economic crisis provides corporations with cheap labor while pricing young Americans out of homes.
Government’s role in the economy should be a minimalistic guardrail to curb unfair corporate power – break up monopolies and harshly prosecute politicians for corruption and insider trading. The issue is that it isn’t doing this.
Democratic Socialists like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani point out legitimate problems while offering fantasy solutions. While campaigning, he promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While many Americans would love to see that, Mamdani recently admitted he doesn’t have the authority to do that as a city mayor. This shows he either relied on misinforming voters or genuinely lacks a basic understanding of American governance.
On the other side of this coin, President Donald Trump betrayed working-class voters who backed his economic promises of isolationism, bringing back manufacturing and ending foreign labor. By launching a disastrous war on behalf of Israel, he has paved the way for Marxists to gain legitimate power in mainstream American politics.
Capitalism isn’t about worshipping corporations. It’s about not handing more power to a heavily corrupt and indebted government.
Real progress comes from free markets backed by accountability. Unfortunately, neither party is willing to hold their leaders accountable.
