{"id":11803,"date":"2016-01-28T11:45:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-28T16:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=11803"},"modified":"2016-01-28T11:45:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T16:45:26","slug":"millennials-dont-know-what-socialism-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2016\/01\/28\/millennials-dont-know-what-socialism-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Millennials Don\u2019t Know What &#8220;Socialism&#8221; Means"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Young people don\u2019t know what socialism is.<\/p>\n<p>Recent\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.people-press.org\/2010\/05\/04\/socialism-not-so-negative-capitalism-not-so-positive\/\">polls have suggested<\/a>\u00a0that millennials are far more positive to socialism than older cohorts. For instance, the Pew Research Center\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.people-press.org\/2010\/05\/04\/socialism-not-so-negative-capitalism-not-so-positive\/\">found<\/a>\u00a0that 43 percent of 18-29 year olds had a positive reaction to the word socialism, compared to 33 percent of 30-49 year olds, 23 percent of 50-64 year olds, and 14% of 65+. The older you get the more you hate socialism.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_div_Blog_articles_mobile_middle1\">\u00a0But do young people even know what socialism means?\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Perhaps not. A\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/poll\/2014\/07\/10\/reason-rupe-2014-millennial-survey\">new Reason-Rupe report on millennials finds<\/a>\u00a0that young people are more favorable to the word \u201csocialism\u201d than a\u00a0government-managed economy, even though the latter is\u00a0lessinterventionist. Millennials don\u2019t like government intervention in the economy when you spell it out precisely, rather than use vague terms like \u201csocialism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, a 2010 CBS\/New York Times survey found that when Americans were asked to use their own words to define the word \u201csocialism\u201d millennials were the least able to do so. According to the survey, only 16 percent of millennials could define socialism as government ownership, or some variation thereof. In contrast, 30 percent of Americans over 30 could do the same (and 57% of tea partiers, incidentally).<\/p>\n<p>Millennials simply don&#8217;t know that socialism means the government owning everybody\u2019s businesses. They don\u2019t understand that socialism means the government owns the banks, the car companies, Uber, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc. They don\u2019t even want the government taking a managerial role over the economy, let alone nationalizing private enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, millennial support for a government-managed economy (32%) mirrors\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.people-press.org\/2011\/12\/28\/littlechange-%20in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism\/\">national favorability<\/a>\u00a0toward the word socialism (31%). Millennial preferences may not be so different from older generations once terms are defined.<\/p>\n<p>Millennials\u2019 preferred economic system becomes more pronounced when it is described precisely. <a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/poll\/2014\/07\/10\/64-of-millennials-favor-a-free-market-ov\">Fully 64 percent favor a free market economy over an economy managed by the government (32%)<\/a>, whereas 52 percent favor capitalism over socialism (42%). Language about capitalism and socialism is vague, and using these terms assumes knowledge millennials may not have acquired.<\/p>\n<p>Millennials didn\u2019t grow up during the Cold War in which the national enemy was a socialist totalitarian regime like the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Since this time, the terms \u201csocialism\u201d and \u201ccapitalism\u201d may have taken on different meaning in the minds of millennials. For instance, socialism could imply protecting the vulnerable from the vicissitudes of capitalism, and capitalism could mean government favoritism instead of a free market.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/12\/04\/sarah-palin-obama-socialist_n_2237163.html\">critics of the president keep calling Obama a socialist<\/a>. Millennials like Obama, \u00a0(52% still approve of him) and thus perhaps the critics\u2019 constant barrage of socialist name-calling has bolstered millennials\u2019 opinion of the word, rather than tainted Obama\u2019s image.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/16\/millennials-dont-know-what-socialism-me2\">Millennials Don\u2019t Know What &#8220;Socialism&#8221; Means &#8211; Hit &amp; Run : Reason.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young people don\u2019t know what socialism is. Recent\u00a0polls have suggested\u00a0that millennials are far more positive to socialism than older cohorts. For instance, the Pew Research Center\u00a0found\u00a0that 43 percent of 18-29 year olds had a positive reaction to the word socialism, compared to 33 percent of 30-49 year olds, 23 percent of 50-64 year olds, and 14% of 65+. The older you get the more you hate socialism. \u00a0But do young people even know what socialism means? Perhaps not. A\u00a0new Reason-Rupe report on millennials finds\u00a0that young people are more favorable to the word \u201csocialism\u201d than a\u00a0government-managed economy, even though the latter is\u00a0lessinterventionist. Millennials don\u2019t like government intervention in the economy when you spell it out precisely, rather than use vague terms like \u201csocialism.\u201d In fact, a 2010 CBS\/New York Times survey found that when Americans were asked to use their own words to define the word \u201csocialism\u201d millennials were the least able to do so. According to the survey, only 16 percent of millennials could define socialism as government ownership, or some variation thereof. In contrast, 30 percent of Americans over 30 could do the same (and 57% of tea partiers, incidentally). Millennials simply don&#8217;t know that socialism means the government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1574],"class_list":["post-11803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-socialism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}