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.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    2 hours ago

    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.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      2 hours ago

      I don’t know if it’s so much about “inherit the capital” as it is about unregulated capitalism slowly taking more and more away from people. At some point the corporations will be trying to get blood from a stone.

  • minorkeys@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours 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.

  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    5 hours ago

    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
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      5 hours ago

      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.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      5 hours ago

      and their priorities would become national priorities.

      Or the ruling class will subvert/overthrow democracy to prevent that from happening (see: Bernie). There’s a reason Marx calls it the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, not the democracy of the bourgeoisie. Democracy just happens to be the best tool for the rich to rule the imperial core most of the time; when it’s not they tend to pivot to fascism. That is to say: Just voting isn’t enough; worker organization is necessary to make the voting stick.

      • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        3 hours ago

        We could then have an armed uprising, since openly subverting what’s left of this democracy would require widespread treason. I think a great deal of the population is holding their breath until the midterms.

        More likely Gen Z and Millennials will believe Musk’s $200 million propaganda push and fail to turn out in the numbers required to overcome the roadblocks the GOP have put in place, or the highly questionable results that our closed-source voting machines generate.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          19 minutes ago

          We could then have an armed uprising, since openly subverting what’s left of this democracy would require widespread treason. I think a great deal of the population is holding their breath until the midterms.

          If that’s the case, where’s the preparation for that armed uprising? Because there’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen before the fascists fully seize power to enable this sort of counter-escalation. The lack of such preparation betrays the lack of will to take such drastic action, which brings us back to my point: The necessary preparations to make the votes stick need to be made before things get that far, because otherwise the fascists will win.

  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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    4 hours ago

    I wonder what percentage is able to accurately define what “capitalism” means.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      28 minutes ago

      Well, there are like five different things that people use “capitalism” to mean.

      For instance, doctrinaire right-libertarians will insist that “capitalism” means the same thing as “a free market in goods and labor” even though the core institutions of capitalism — stock markets — were developed to finance colonial monopolies that used slavery. (Monopolies = unfree trade; slavery = unfree labor.) Capital markets don’t care about your freedom; they work just fine without freedom of anything but capital itself.

      Meanwhile, doctrinaire communists will insist that “capitalism” is a historical stage followed by workers’ revolution creating socialism and eventually communism — despite actually-existing “workers’ revolutions” instead producing a new sort of monarchy and feudalism, in which power is held by a single dictator and his powerful supporters.

      There are other uses. For instance, a lot of pop-progressives use “capitalism” to mean something like “the vale of tears, the fallen world, this age of brass and clay, the Kali Yuga” — the human condition! Anyone who thinks scarcity, poverty, or hierarchy are the fault of capitalism is ignorant of history; these troubles are much older than capitalism! Anything that Jesus or Buddha had to deal with, isn’t capitalism.

      During the Cold War, “capitalism” sometimes simply meant “the geopolitical interest of the United States and Western Europe; as against those of the Soviet Union and Communist China”, and secondarily “access by American and Western European businesses to the materials, labor, and markets of ‘developing’ countries, typically without the people in those countries enjoying the freedoms that Americans and Western Europeans themselves enjoy.”

      And of course, the only correct definition of “capitalism” is mine, namely “an economic system under which ventures seek funding by selling equity (partial ownership), principally through regulated public markets (i.e. the stock market).” It’s not about freedom and it’s not about America; capitalism is about shareholder value.

    • mycodesucks@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Probably about the same percentage of the other side that can accurately define what “socialism” means.