this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2026
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Only 9 percent of Americans younger than 30 have a “very positive” view of capitalism, according to a new CBS/YouGov poll.

That shows a stark generation between Generation Z and older generations.

The data arrives amid a surge in democratic socialist victories across the U.S. — and not just in progressive corners of the country. Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon (D) on Tuesday beat out the more moderate Alex Vindman (D) in the Democratic Senate primary in Florida, a state known for its sunshine, not socialism.

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[–] BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 17 points 17 hours ago

HOW is this Possible! ALL we did is Tell kids that Healthcare is Socialism, Housing is Socialism, Education is Socialism, Good jobs are Socialism and Freedom is Socialism!

-EVERY Politician in America!

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 86 points 2 days ago

All it took was a completely destroyed future, no access to wealth and a climate crisis that threatens to kill everyone and all large firms of life. That's the power of propaganda, right there.

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (16 children)

I'm fine with well-regulated, yea sufficiently-regulated, capitalism. But I really don't care what you call it.

There should be some profit motive or I think it falls apart. But first and foremost, it has to be fair. We shouldn't have billionaires. I don't care if we have millionaires. But not one fucking stupidly-fucking-rich person until the social safety nets take care of every last one of us.

And the oligarchs built their wealth on the backs of the rest of us, and on the public services that WE fucking pay for. They need to pay their FAIR share, which is a fuck ton more than they are.

So beyond that? Details that people smarter than me can work out.

Am I anti-capitalism? Meh. I care less for what we call it than what it does and how it treats people.

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 15 hours ago

Well regulated capitalism is socialism. The more you think about it and dig at it, the more you realize that what you want actually just is straight up socialism and explicitly not capitalism.

The capital in capitalism is the power to the money, a positive feedback loop. And that socialism is all the stuff that people actually like. It gets into ownership and copyright and what is ownable, but all of that is very important to consider when making or thinking about worldviews.

Somebody more awake than me can put out names and concepts. The world is a weird place and it can change in an instant. I wish I could live forever and see where it goes and ride that ride.

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But line must go up. At all costs.

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

But that's the thing that's most frstrating of all: Line still go up with fuckign social safety nets. (cussing at the fascists and oligarchs, not you). heh

[–] thefloweracidic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (4 children)

One flaw in capitalism that I often think about is its inevitable that the ones who hold the most valuable resource writes the rules of capitalism. Even when well regulated, even if we get rid of lobbying, even if we get reverse Citizens United, whoever holds the most desirable thing holds influence, and influence is destined to become corrupted in a system that divides people into winners and losers via competition.

I think economies at a bare minimum should be optional to engage with for luxuries only and that we as a species should learn to value more meaningful things other than pretty metals and hollow social praise from strangers.

Honestly I think capitalism was born of the mental immaturity of our species. It sounds great if you don't know much about the world, but the more you do the less capitalism makes sense.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Honestly I think capitalism was born of the mental immaturity of our species.

Nobody invented capitalism, it just developed from people buying and selling stuff. Specialization meant people didn't produce all of the things they needed themselves. So people had to trade. From there systems developed.

And it's generally a good thing that people can choose for themselves what they value and buy the things they want. What's important to you, won't be important to me. There won't be a world where we all want the same things unless you make it so everyone in the world thought exactly the same way. And that doesn't sound like a better world to me.

You are reading this on an electronic device. Do you need that device, or is it a luxury? In the Soviet Union they decided only party leaders needed telephones, so only the party leaders had them. Seems convenient logic whenever those with power need things everyone else doesn't, but you can understand the logic. Why would someone working in a factory need to own a telephone?

It's better to have people have the choice about what they want to buy and have a system that's simply producing the things people want to buy. But that means some people will buy luxury items. But how do you even determine what is a luxury item? Is a telephone a luxury item? If people can buy what they want and items people want to buy are being produced and the price of those items is determined by the value of the resources used to make those products, no one needs to worry about what is a luxury and what isn't.

Yes that means some people will get wealthy. How about just taxing the wealthy people?

Ultimately every system ends up with inequality. Somehow it needs to be determined what people need and what are luxuries they don't need. People in power will always decide they need to have more than everyone else. Best you can do is have an educated population that has the ability to remove people from power when they abuse it. But even then, people will be stupid and get scammed. But that will happen in any system.

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Why wouldn't we at least want democracy in the workplace?

I'm partial to a Cooperative Economy, a form of stateless market socialism, in conjunction with something like the Economy for the Common Good as an alternative to GDP, a measure for economic growth, and can be used for the purpose of determining tax brackets and providing subsidies for example. Implementing the right incentives to make the transition could begin to provide a significant break from capitalism.

[–] BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The problem with the unregulated capitalism we're seeing globally, is intergenerational wealth. In very short, it's inheritance.

If everyone were to build themselves up from nothing, we'd have a pretty strong merit based system.

But when rich fucks can hand millions upon millions to their off spring, so no matter their ability to understand the world will live comfortably. Then everything breaks apart.

Ultimately will unregulated capitalism always see wealth/profits drift towards the already wealthy families. Where as resetting wealth every generation, would make dynasties way less likely to exist.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Why would we want a "strong merit based" system? Congrats, you won the genetic lottery and are healthy with attentive parents! Your life has more value than others!

[–] BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk 1 points 10 hours ago

So experts are in a position of power and knowledge creation.

We want whoever is better at a topic, to excel at the topic and be able to research within the topic. Likewise we want ministers of health, whom actually understand health and the science behind it

[–] daychilde@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I don't disagree, but it's the building of massive wealth that I find problematic in addition. But I agree that inherited wealth is a massive problem as well.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Also can we just get rid of publicly traded stocks as well. That shit makes Capitalism explicitly worse and I'm like 90 percent sure it actively would corrupt any system it's present in at this point.

If you want to sell stocks for mining expeditions for example then fine, but the company should be dissolved afterwards or otherwise take the total financial damages for failure.

[–] Komatoes@discuss.online 2 points 14 hours ago

Right, stocks mean that instead of a company benefiting the employees or clients, it has to solely prioritize this third party who is completely detached from the business at all. No good can come from that.

[–] save_the_humans@leminal.space 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Kind of feels like I'm beating off a dead horse when I talk about cooperatives, but multi stakeholder models can solve a lot of the issues with publicly traded stocks. Namely the perverse incentive to appease shareholders over workers or consumers. At least give workers majority stake, so they can install their own board of directors instead of all the voting power unfairly given to the sociopaths with the most money.

I'm all for getting rid of it completely though.

You can still have privately traded stocks just not publicly traded. I believe WinCo does that.

[–] MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago

Right, but capitalism is exploitative by its very nature. Profit is evidence of underpaying labor. There is a massive difference between something like a small business where the owner is working to provide the products/services themselves vs somebody buying a factory/plant/farm/whatever and paying others to do the work for them while they collect millions merely for owning the means of production. Is it possible for a small, single owner/worker/operator business to profit? Yes. The business profits by paying the owner less than their labor was worth, but it's ultimately identical to paying the full value and then them choosing to invest their money back into the business. But you'd be braindead to do that because of how taxes on businesses work compared to income tax.

To be clear, it's not that it's called capitalism that's what is pissing people off. It's that people are going deep into debt to get degrees that they were promised were tickets to making enough money to live comfortably in a house that they could own, and instead everybody is so broke that simple purchases now require financing while working 2-3 jobs. Everything is getting worse and more expensive and it's because of the economic expectation of infinite growth in a real world with finite resources. Speculative value is falsely inflating the value of an increasingly fundamental cornerstone of the US economy, and therefore a significant chunk of the global economy. AI as a tool can be useful in targeted usecases, but its parading as a solution for everything is a ruinous fucking bubble that's spreading and consuming at a civilization-ending rate; it's collapse if it pops, and it's dystopian hell if it doesn't.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You are now antifa. Capitalists are willing to throw you in jail until you die. The profit motive of prisons you demand to exist be sufficiently regulated have deemed you a terrorist. Accept your fate for the prosperity you assume will occur afterwards.

Or consider that capitalism has fundamental issues and a profit motive is probably one of them. The wish to rule the world is the end goal of capitalism, no? If the maximum to capitalism isn't ruling the world, what's your proposal for the ceiling of capital? Why cant that ceiling have any more profit? Why is the profit motive limited at a certain point if fundamentally a profit motive is necessary? Unless you are willing to admit that there is a maximum amount an individual can have to be satisfied with life and exceeding it is pure gluttony? If you say that, you are an anti capitalist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSPM-7

https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-nspm-7-seeks-to-use-domestic-terrorism-to-target-nonprofits-and-activists

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 49 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

Gen Z + Millennial eligible voters total more than 100 million, Boomer voters total maybe 60 million and only 50% of that group voted for Trump.

If Gen Z & Millennials started voting en mass they'd completely overwhelm MAGA and conservative voters and their priorities would become national priorities. Hopefully they're sick enough of the Trump Show to actually head to the polls in great numbers come November.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Gen-X: alright, I'ma head out.

But in all seriousness it's good to see the kids getting it. Not even enough of my own generation does. Enough of them were able to secure enough, that they've become detached and ignorant to it. Though they all at least tend to support a jaded understanding.

[–] BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 24 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Remember the Yuppies?

Every generation after WWII has had a net negative view of capitalism under 30.

Then they get kids and property and the ones with a voice and power suddenly decide capitalism is OK after all.

That said, each generation since WWII it has taken longer for the next generation to inherit the capital. So Gen Z might be in their 50s or 60s before the majority decides capitalism is OK.

That could prove… interesting.

[–] mcv@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I own property. I wouldn't mind seeing its value halved if it meant everybody could afford a house.

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not to mention we shouldn't be valuing property in terms of monetary value, but rather the utility you get for that value.

Property is worth a shit ton right now, and I get that people like counting the high value of their property as an asset. But say you go to sell that property...you still have to live somewhere afterwards. Any new place you'd be buying or renting would be just as overinflated in terms of cost.

If the housing market were to crash again, you can't sell your house for as much, but also you wouldn't need to pay as much to move in somewhere else either. A house losing half its value doesn't delete half the house, it just makes it more accessible to buyers who don't already have a house to sell.

[–] Hazor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

A problem here is: how many people with 20+ years on their mortgage are suddenly owing more than the house is worth? If my house's value were to drop by half tomorrow, I'd be stuck and unable to move because I would still need to pay as much as the previous values in order to move somewhere else.

I don't know how we fix that, but I don't think it's an insurmountable barrier to making housing affordable.

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's a difference now. People can't afford property or kids and they're pissed.

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[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago (3 children)

First day back in school and there's tremendous support for Zohran (we don't live in NYC)

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