Why do Millennials like socialism? According to a recent poll, 58 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 have a favorable view of it, compared with only 23 percent of those between 55 and 64. It would be easy to chalk up this difference to the idea that people get smarter as they get older. But there are other reasons that this generation has soured on capitalism and that their views may not change much as they get older.
Start with this: Ninety percent of Americans born in 1940 made more money than their parents. But as Malcolm Harris writes in his book Kids These Days, “it's a coin flip whether or not we'll out-earn Mom and Dad.” Nor, he argues, is this a problem that America can grow its way out of. “The American dream isn't fading,” he says. “It's being hoarded.” Harris suggests that America is no longer a country of social mobility—and, more sobering, the problem is not only class stratification but generational decline.
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