Why College Students Prefer Socialism—and Why They're Wrong

[Kamaji]

Why College Students Prefer Socialism—and Why They're Wrong

When the media say the middle class is in decline, they're technically right—because people are getting richer.

John Stossel | 12.24.2025

People criticize capitalism. A recent Axios-Generation Lab poll says, "College students prefer socialism to capitalism."

Why?

Because they believe absurd myths. Like the claim that the Soviet Union "wasn't real socialism."

Socialism guru Noam Chomsky tells students that. He says the Soviet Union "was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine."

Give me a break.

The Soviets made private business illegal.

If that's not socialism, I'm not sure what is.

"Socialism means abolishing private property and…replacing it with some form of collective ownership," explains economist Ben Powell. "The Soviet Union had an abundance of that."

Socialism always fails. Look at Venezuela, the richest country in Latin America about 40 years ago. Now people there face food shortages, poverty, misery, and election outcomes the regime ignores.

But Al Jazeera claims Venezuela's failure has "little to do with socialism, and a lot to do with poor governance….Economic policies have failed to adjust to reality."

"That's the nature of socialism!" exclaims Powell. "Economic policies fail to adjust to reality. Economic reality evolves every day. Millions of decentralized entrepreneurs and consumers make fine tuning adjustments."

Political leaders can't keep up with that.

Still, pundits and politicians tell people, socialism does work—in Scandinavia.

Mad Money's Jim Cramer calls Norway "as socialist as they come!"

This too is nonsense.

"Sweden isn't socialist," says Powell. "Volvo is a private company. Restaurants, hotels, they're privately owned."

Norway, Denmark, and Sweden are all free market economies.

Denmark's former prime minister was so annoyed with economically ignorant Americans like Bernie Sanders calling Scandinavia "socialist," he came to America to tell Harvard students that his country "is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."

*  *  *

Source:  https://reason.com/2025/12/24/why-college-students-prefer-socialism-and-why-theyre-wrong/

[berdie]

Why college students prefer socialism? Educated but stupid with no common sense?

[roamer_1]

Why college students prefer socialism? Educated but stupid with no common sense?

Well, with their professors evangelizing socialism, stuffing their poor, young, cabbage heads full of lies...

And most of em figger it out, later in life. with 80-100k in debt and they are diggin in the dirt or styling hair for a living. What an incredible scam.

[Free Vulcan]

Of course they do. They had suburbanite childhoods with no understanding of working, earning, and struggling. They think life should always be as it was.

They don't understand that others work to provide that money that they don't want to earn, which amounts to little more than religious and moral compulsion with little difference to the old kings/serf/church setup in the middle ages.

[MeganC]

Why College Students Prefer Socialism—and Why They're Wrong

College students were taught to prefer socialism. Blame their teachers, professors, and Democrat operated unions. 

[Smokin Joe]

Of course they do. They had suburbanite childhoods with no understanding of working, earning, and struggling. They think life should always be as it was.

They don't understand that others work to provide that money that they don't want to earn, which amounts to little more than religious and moral compulsion with little difference to the old kings/serf/church setup in the middle ages.

All of this, but especially that in bold. Unlike many of those I went to college with, I'd worked my summers in the tobacco fields as soon as I was able to do something useful, and when not doing that, helped move cattle and sheep for my uncle. I first drove a tractor at 5, and was routinely doing so by the time I turned ten, and worked my way up to planting, cutting, spearing, and hanging tobacco, and to baling hay as I got older. At 14, I got my first job off the farm, and was doing heavy construction, building seawalls and piers.
I knew the value of a dollar, and it was written in sweat. Over the years, I did enough hard work that I decided that was not the way I'd prefer to spend all my days, so I did well in college, in a field that had some practical application.

But I knew every dollar out there had someone's sweat on it. Nothing was free, someone always paid for it, somewhere.
The back side of socialism that more pampered youth do not see, is that someone will always sweat to provide it, what ever it is. They only think that they will not be the ones to do so, and are bitterly disappointed when they find they are in thrall for vast sums to get an education that is of little or no practical value, instead of being among the few pampered leaders of a nonproductive faction of society. So now they cry for greater pay for menial tasks, and even do those poorly, blaming those who have worked hard and been successful instead of those who led them astray for their own poor choices which have left them in their current situation.

[escapeefromtaxachusetts]

If you send you child to college as an empty vessel, this is what you get. Part of it stems from not having a working experience.
I am of the Medicare generation and back then, I believe stats showed that about 80% of teens had a summer job, be it camp counselor, flipping burgers or working as an orderly in a hospital which I did for 8 years during 2 years of  high school, four years of college summers and  winter breaks and first 2 years of grad school.Now it is about 30% with a summer job. In my office when I see teens,  ask what they are doing for the summer and most reply "nothing" while others are working 2 jobs since the pay increased during Covid. I can predict which ones will be successful and which ones will be living in mommy and daddy's basement at age 25.