Why the Young Reject Capitalism

I know, it's been a while since I posted anything. My problem has been that the news cycle seems to be 100% Trump, and that means I find it 100% uninteresting to write about. I will leave that subject alone, since (almost) literally every single other post on the internet seems to be about him. Why pile on with obvious rebuttals and pointless fist shaking?

Fortunately, today I read an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), HERE, about the apparent disconnect between the young's idolization of the silicon valley types (the Elon Musks of the world) and their vilification of capitalism. Now, the first thing I would like to point out here is that this is a terrible stereotype. The young, like the middle aged and old, hold a multiplicity of political and social opinions. So attempts to pigeonhole them into one particular view is, at best, misleading. Still, even if we accept the premise that the young or "millennials" all hold silicon valley types up as icons while hating capitalism, why should this come as such a surprise to the Wall Street types who the WSJ typically appeals to? Can they really think of NO reasons why the young would mistrust free enterprise and big business? It all seems very disingenuous.

Firstly, if we are going to stereotype millennials, we can at least do so a bit more accurately by saying they are far more tech savvy than the older generations, given they grew up on the internet and with smart phones. But even here, I admit, we are painting with a broad brush. Secondly, that they have lived through multiple economic down turns with both the tech bubble bursting and the great recession occurring during their lifetimes. Lastly, their generation has been saddled with more debt than any previous generation, due largely to the cost of college spiking during their lifetime. So, even without bothering to put up any more examples (of which their are plenty) of the apparent failure of capitalism to provide them with an improving quality of life, it should be obvious why the young distrust capitalism. They have seen the worst aspects of it without reaping any of the benefits, or that's at least how it appears to them. Obviously, modern America and our high standard of living exists, at least partially, because of capitalism, so we all (arguably) reap the benefits. But the point is, the defining moments of their lifetimes have not been ones in which capitalism has had much to crow about.

Now compare this with silicon valley. We have young dynamic companies creating billions of dollars seemingly overnight using the very technologies that this generation grew up with. More over, these companies are anxious to hire millennials and make use of their tech knowledge (one of the few areas of the economy that is all that interested in this generation).  More over, they have seen the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation use money earned in tech to do real good in the world. Similarly, they have seen Elon Musk create new companies and vast fortunes on technologies designed to ween the world from our reliance on fossil fuels that are (at the very least) partially responsible for our current global warming trend. Is it really a surprise that the young think highly of these actions?

The point of the article in the WSJ is really that we should be calling attention to all the good that capitalism has wrought (and the wrong government has caused through excessive regulation) and proselytizing this to the masses. And I do not disagree with this point. What I do disagree with is the facile notion that all millenials think a certain way, and that the benefits of capitalism should be obvious to the younger generations given our recent history. If we are to make a convincing argument for free enterprise and capitalism free of government interference, we should start by being honest with ourselves that the case for this is not nearly as obvious as we would like it to be. And from this point of mutual understanding, we can then build a case (using tech companies, if that seems the most likely example to keep our audiences' attention) that capitalism and free enterprise are things worth preserving.

In the Age of Trump, the Left Needs to Rethink Its Tactics

There were two very important editorials in today's Wall Street Journal that I'm sure most of its loyal readers glossed over. The first is a piece about how Liberals need to have a long look in the mirror about who is really at fault for the rise of Trump in the USA and ultra-nationalism in the EU and elsewhere. Here's the link. The second is a piece about how Liberals are going to have to rethink how they treat ever utterance and Tweet by Trump, as exhaustion will quickly overtake the wave of outrage they have been riding since he was elected. Here's the link to that piece. These are important opinion pieces about how the Left needs to change in order to be an effective force against these new political movements. If you have access to the WSJ, I highly recommend you read them. Because, as far as I can see, the Liberal political movements of the world are getting their asses kicked in local elections, and one party rule, regardless of the party, is never healthy for any country. Even though I dislike many of the policies of the left, I want them to be an effective fighting force against the worst deprivations of the right.

The problem in the USA currently is that the Democrats spent the last 6 years running this country through executive fiat after they lost their super-majorities in the first mid-term election of the Obama White House. They ran the country this way because they felt they had to, but also because they could not conceive of a future where they were not in charge of the executive branch of the US government. I get the feeling that both France and Germany in the EU have been doing much the same things, and are now perilously close to seeing Mrs. Merkel in Germany lose her re-election and see Marine Le Pen in France, if not take over the government there, continue to gain political power. The reason for this is because the left all around the globe have been in power for so long, and have isolated themselves from the people they supposedly represented for so long, that they are unable to truly understand the backlash they are facing. With that level of isolation, and policy making in an echo-chamber, they now find themselves unable to fight off the advances of their rivals. That very echo-chamber has sowed the seeds of their own defeat, and I fear a world where ultra-nationalism controls the helms of all of the world's super powers.

So, for any Liberal who truly doesn't understand how Trump beat Hillary, who truly doesn't get why Brexit won a majority of the vote, and who can't understand who would possibly vote for ultra-right leaning politicians, read these articles. They, better than I, will explain how your smarmy self congratulations over policies that did real harm to real people have rankled with the electorate. How every time you fought a battle for political correctness to the point of ruining someone's life that they and their friends took notice and began to hate you. How every time your politicians showed up in a limo to a $1000 a plate fundraiser to talk about how more needs to be done for the less fortunate, while doing little but expanding the well-fare state, infuriated many of the people you were supposedly trying to help. Basically, read those articles and understand, truly, how you all became the morally repugnant elite of the first world, and why your asses are getting kicked by people you think of as abhorrent. You've allowed previous successes to turn you into Marie Antoinettes saying "let them eat cake" as the revolution comes to your doors (I realize this is apocryphal, but it's a good analogy). You've become the limousine liberals that you likely once vowed you would never become. Please, for the sake of the world, do a better job. Because the rise of nationalism has, historically, signaled the beginning of a rough patch in human history.