There was a time when it was understood that youth and wisdom generally do not accompany one another. It's why we have a phrase, "impetuous youth," instead of "restrained/wise/careful youth." For reasons that are not crystal clear, but probably have something to do with the fact that Western society (f/k/a "Christiandom") has largely abandoned Biblical wisdom (or even what was once called "common sense") youths are now being allowed to dominate the culture. They have, accordingly, brought neither "wisdom" nor any other Biblical virtue (or any other virtue from what I can see) to our social discourse or politics. This raises the question, why are they so ignorant and arrogant? They answer, "We don't know and we don't care."
Well beginning about 50 years ago a deliberate effort began removing the teaching of Civics, (what it means to be an American citizen and part of the social compact), and all things related to our American history and the history of Western Civilization.
Those were replaced with studies of “global” history and the “interconnectedness of all peoples” everywhere, and that they were mostly victims of American imperialism and colonial oppression somehow.
These kids don’t stand a chance because they are utterly unequipped to comprehend, even on the most basic levels, what they are wishing for.
We let this happen by allowing our school systems to diverge so deceptively and dangerously from their true purpose and design, and now it’s time to pay the piper.
Funny part of this whole thing is the fact that DEI and the corresponding identitarianism has brought socialism to the forefront, preaching a sermon of equity being the highest of moral ground. It does nothing to support equality of opportunity. It dumbs everything down to a point where there is no excellence to strive for. These people, the new socialists, are utopian zealots who have a problem with envy.
Agreed, BUT, the beginning of the end began with birth control pills, then feminism and two working parents, then Dr. Spock and weak discipline, then atheists winning SCOTUS ruling removing anything religious from schools, then participation trophies, then phones and internet for 12 year olds, then government subsidizing single parents, then near naked divas worshipped by children and parents . . .
"The new socialists will object that they are democratic socialists, that they want Denmark, not a commune on the Wabash. But the objection runs backward. Owen’s socialism was the easy case...."
No - Always the cherry-pickingest anecdotes from you.
Now do some of the many Israeli kibbutzim that were "socialist" for decades. Or Hutterite communities.
And always your binary presentation - Because countries and economies don't ever have "socialist features." Because those perennially chart-topping Scandinavian countries incorporate various socialist features.
Lenin is the father of Russian communism. Lenin said "The goal of socialism is communism." He viewed socialism not as a separate entity from communism but as a transitional lower phase. Those who forget history (or never knew it) are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps you of all people should read this, you may learn something.
I can think of a few examples of groups that can pull off collectivism: intense pair bonds, families with minor children, passionately devoted religious communities, and (in emergency contexts) tightly bonded military units. All of these examples succeed only within strict limits of time, number, and enduring motives for self-sacrificing mutual care: the incentive to give to others is as strong as the incentive to keep, when the welfare of the other is at least as crucial as the need to survive oneself.
The bonds don't scale up to include strangers. What socialist societies try to employ instead is the right to vote to force other people to exhibit more compassion than the average voter voluntarily exhibits himself--the political equivalent of the economic strategy of losing money on every transaction but making it up in volume.
What free-market societies can do is create abundance. They have to look outside the economic system for the motives to give generously to anyone in need.
"The insult is structural." I remember being in my twenties. There will be no getting through to these people by ordinary means of persuasion or debate.
In one sense all children are raised communist. One person works. Everyone else takes according to their needs. Everyone eats and works communally. Of course they hit adulthood and are shocked at how hard that is for the one or two people working.
Also NOT having children is bad for one’s economic health. You can play far longer into adulthood. Have kids in your early 20s and you have to settle down. Hence raised commie, inadvertently, hit adulthood and be shocked at how hard you have to work, not have kids, and next thing you know you join the DSA.
Good times produce weak populations. A lot of things must be learned the hard way, so perhaps all affluent societies are inherently doomed. On the flip side, hard times produce strong populations: "A Lesson in Communism from our Two Earliest Colonies": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-communism-from-our-two
There is another factor to consider here. Young people attend colleges full of professors who've never had a paycheck that didn't come from the government. Millions of students have no idea why they're there and wouldn't be there but for government-guaranteed loans that are financing their four-year hiatus from reality. Because of this flood of unwarranted students and their attendant money, colleges have expanded and jacked their fees by multiple times what real demand would have dictated (watch Peter Schiff's "How government programs drive up college tuitions"). They graduate with degrees that qualify them for the same jobs they could've gotten with their high school diplomas, but they are tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Having no concept of any of this, they correctly realize they've been snookered, but they blame capitalism when in fact their unwarranted student loans were pure socialism. Until some leader has the guts to eliminate government-guaranteed student loans, we'll be on the road to communism.
"Plymouth Colony began with communal property and near starvation, and within 3 years it abandoned the common store for private plots, after which the harvests improved." Had this not been included, I would have loved to point that out, good job! What is going on proves that our education system has been corrupted and has devolved to an INDOCTRINATION system. American history, if taught at all, is so watered down that the 'Pilgrims plight' and resolution is not taught! As is still true today, "If you fail to learn from History, you are doomed to repeat it," and these ill-educated, ill-informed, so-called Democrat Socialists "Know Not What They Do!"
I went to very good schools and had a history minor at a highly ranked University, that I won't embarrass by mentioning in this context ,and I did not know about the Pilgrims communist experiment until Rush! God bless Rush.
The DSA young voters are Nepo babies who understand that NGO life 🔄 revolving door government/Non Government is Baller life and works for THEM as will the rest of us Zeks. So Author you are wrong, they understand perfectly and you aren’t giving them enough credit to take the blame; DENIED. GUILTY. Condemn to Justice. 💀🚁
The rise of the various socialist parties in the United States should not be treated as some harmless political fashion.
One only needs to look at the kulaks in the Soviet Union to understand where this road can lead. When the state decides who has “too much,” who is “exploiting” whom, and who must surrender property for the collective good, it does not stop with slogans. It ends with confiscation, coercion, ruined production, and eventually suffering on a scale the comfortable theorists never seem to imagine.
That is the part these DSA zealots never seem to grasp, or perhaps they grasp it perfectly. They all appear to share one defining characteristic: they imagine themselves in the places of power, giving orders, not taking orders.
Not in the bread lines.
Not in the fields.
Not in the factories.
Not repairing the trucks, stocking the shelves, keeping the power grid alive, or doing the dirty, miserable, necessary work that keeps society from collapsing.
They imagine themselves on the committee. Issuing orders. Writing policy. Deciding who has too much, who deserves less, who must sacrifice, and who needs to be “reeducated” for the good of everyone else.
That is the fantasy. Not equality. Not solidarity. Power. Moral vanity with a government badge.
And it will not be only the socialists who suffer when the machine fails. Everyone eats the consequences. Everyone stands in the stale bread and rancid meat line. Everyone lives under the shortages, the controls, the informants, the fear, and the inevitable corruption.
In theory, socialism is presented as the path toward communism. Lenin himself made that clear. In practice, both systems collapse into the same ugly reality: centralized power, destroyed incentives, political favoritism, and ordinary people paying the price for elite fantasies.
Neither communism nor socialism has ever worked in its pure form. Not once. Every surviving version today has had to drag some significant capitalist mechanism into its “utopian” system just to keep the lights on. That alone should tell us something.
The theory sounds noble. The history is a graveyard. Just like Mr. Owen rather quickly discovered.
The only hope is that Republicans can find, support, and make room for young conservatives as a counterbalance. The aged have held on to the political parties far too long.
The Red-Green coalition wants young Americans to believe socialism is new, moral, and sophisticated. It is not. It is an old wreck with fresh graphics. New Harmony proved the central problem long before Marxism drenched the 20th century in blood: when planners replace prices and common ownership replaces responsibility, scarcity, resentment, and coercion follow. The DSA crowd says “Denmark,” but its platform points toward control, dependency, anti-police politics, open borders, and administrative power. Capitalism is not utopia. It is reality disciplined by incentives, property, work, family, faith, and freedom. America already paid this tuition. Decline to re-enroll.
There was a time when it was understood that youth and wisdom generally do not accompany one another. It's why we have a phrase, "impetuous youth," instead of "restrained/wise/careful youth." For reasons that are not crystal clear, but probably have something to do with the fact that Western society (f/k/a "Christiandom") has largely abandoned Biblical wisdom (or even what was once called "common sense") youths are now being allowed to dominate the culture. They have, accordingly, brought neither "wisdom" nor any other Biblical virtue (or any other virtue from what I can see) to our social discourse or politics. This raises the question, why are they so ignorant and arrogant? They answer, "We don't know and we don't care."
Well beginning about 50 years ago a deliberate effort began removing the teaching of Civics, (what it means to be an American citizen and part of the social compact), and all things related to our American history and the history of Western Civilization.
Those were replaced with studies of “global” history and the “interconnectedness of all peoples” everywhere, and that they were mostly victims of American imperialism and colonial oppression somehow.
These kids don’t stand a chance because they are utterly unequipped to comprehend, even on the most basic levels, what they are wishing for.
We let this happen by allowing our school systems to diverge so deceptively and dangerously from their true purpose and design, and now it’s time to pay the piper.
Funny part of this whole thing is the fact that DEI and the corresponding identitarianism has brought socialism to the forefront, preaching a sermon of equity being the highest of moral ground. It does nothing to support equality of opportunity. It dumbs everything down to a point where there is no excellence to strive for. These people, the new socialists, are utopian zealots who have a problem with envy.
And, have no idea that history has already proven that what they seek is actually 'catastrophic!'
Agreed, BUT, the beginning of the end began with birth control pills, then feminism and two working parents, then Dr. Spock and weak discipline, then atheists winning SCOTUS ruling removing anything religious from schools, then participation trophies, then phones and internet for 12 year olds, then government subsidizing single parents, then near naked divas worshipped by children and parents . . .
"The new socialists will object that they are democratic socialists, that they want Denmark, not a commune on the Wabash. But the objection runs backward. Owen’s socialism was the easy case...."
No - Always the cherry-pickingest anecdotes from you.
Now do some of the many Israeli kibbutzim that were "socialist" for decades. Or Hutterite communities.
And always your binary presentation - Because countries and economies don't ever have "socialist features." Because those perennially chart-topping Scandinavian countries incorporate various socialist features.
You put Russian symbols on these babies. That’s not socialism. No need to read the article. It’s just trolling.
Lenin is the father of Russian communism. Lenin said "The goal of socialism is communism." He viewed socialism not as a separate entity from communism but as a transitional lower phase. Those who forget history (or never knew it) are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps you of all people should read this, you may learn something.
Thanks for an excellent example that was new to me. The DSA will fail deliciously because they are all smarter than each other.
I can think of a few examples of groups that can pull off collectivism: intense pair bonds, families with minor children, passionately devoted religious communities, and (in emergency contexts) tightly bonded military units. All of these examples succeed only within strict limits of time, number, and enduring motives for self-sacrificing mutual care: the incentive to give to others is as strong as the incentive to keep, when the welfare of the other is at least as crucial as the need to survive oneself.
The bonds don't scale up to include strangers. What socialist societies try to employ instead is the right to vote to force other people to exhibit more compassion than the average voter voluntarily exhibits himself--the political equivalent of the economic strategy of losing money on every transaction but making it up in volume.
What free-market societies can do is create abundance. They have to look outside the economic system for the motives to give generously to anyone in need.
"The insult is structural." I remember being in my twenties. There will be no getting through to these people by ordinary means of persuasion or debate.
In one sense all children are raised communist. One person works. Everyone else takes according to their needs. Everyone eats and works communally. Of course they hit adulthood and are shocked at how hard that is for the one or two people working.
Also NOT having children is bad for one’s economic health. You can play far longer into adulthood. Have kids in your early 20s and you have to settle down. Hence raised commie, inadvertently, hit adulthood and be shocked at how hard you have to work, not have kids, and next thing you know you join the DSA.
Because they are utterly narcissistic, as genuine villains always are.
Good times produce weak populations. A lot of things must be learned the hard way, so perhaps all affluent societies are inherently doomed. On the flip side, hard times produce strong populations: "A Lesson in Communism from our Two Earliest Colonies": https://daveziffer.substack.com/p/a-lesson-in-communism-from-our-two
There is another factor to consider here. Young people attend colleges full of professors who've never had a paycheck that didn't come from the government. Millions of students have no idea why they're there and wouldn't be there but for government-guaranteed loans that are financing their four-year hiatus from reality. Because of this flood of unwarranted students and their attendant money, colleges have expanded and jacked their fees by multiple times what real demand would have dictated (watch Peter Schiff's "How government programs drive up college tuitions"). They graduate with degrees that qualify them for the same jobs they could've gotten with their high school diplomas, but they are tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Having no concept of any of this, they correctly realize they've been snookered, but they blame capitalism when in fact their unwarranted student loans were pure socialism. Until some leader has the guts to eliminate government-guaranteed student loans, we'll be on the road to communism.
Peter Schiff: How government programs drive up college tuitions: https://youtu.be/AIcfMMVcYZg?t=90
"Plymouth Colony began with communal property and near starvation, and within 3 years it abandoned the common store for private plots, after which the harvests improved." Had this not been included, I would have loved to point that out, good job! What is going on proves that our education system has been corrupted and has devolved to an INDOCTRINATION system. American history, if taught at all, is so watered down that the 'Pilgrims plight' and resolution is not taught! As is still true today, "If you fail to learn from History, you are doomed to repeat it," and these ill-educated, ill-informed, so-called Democrat Socialists "Know Not What They Do!"
I went to very good schools and had a history minor at a highly ranked University, that I won't embarrass by mentioning in this context ,and I did not know about the Pilgrims communist experiment until Rush! God bless Rush.
Did you mean to say, 'I did (not) know about the Pilgrims communist until Rush?'
Yes, thanks, I was tired and missed that. Fixed it.
You don’t have to be old to read the manual.
The DSA young voters are Nepo babies who understand that NGO life 🔄 revolving door government/Non Government is Baller life and works for THEM as will the rest of us Zeks. So Author you are wrong, they understand perfectly and you aren’t giving them enough credit to take the blame; DENIED. GUILTY. Condemn to Justice. 💀🚁
All they have to do is look a CUBA … that is present day, but they are generally to arrogant and stupid to recognize it !!!
"Those who do not remember the past (or are blissfully ignorant of it) are condemned to repeat it." ~ George Santayana
The rise of the various socialist parties in the United States should not be treated as some harmless political fashion.
One only needs to look at the kulaks in the Soviet Union to understand where this road can lead. When the state decides who has “too much,” who is “exploiting” whom, and who must surrender property for the collective good, it does not stop with slogans. It ends with confiscation, coercion, ruined production, and eventually suffering on a scale the comfortable theorists never seem to imagine.
That is the part these DSA zealots never seem to grasp, or perhaps they grasp it perfectly. They all appear to share one defining characteristic: they imagine themselves in the places of power, giving orders, not taking orders.
Not in the bread lines.
Not in the fields.
Not in the factories.
Not repairing the trucks, stocking the shelves, keeping the power grid alive, or doing the dirty, miserable, necessary work that keeps society from collapsing.
They imagine themselves on the committee. Issuing orders. Writing policy. Deciding who has too much, who deserves less, who must sacrifice, and who needs to be “reeducated” for the good of everyone else.
That is the fantasy. Not equality. Not solidarity. Power. Moral vanity with a government badge.
And it will not be only the socialists who suffer when the machine fails. Everyone eats the consequences. Everyone stands in the stale bread and rancid meat line. Everyone lives under the shortages, the controls, the informants, the fear, and the inevitable corruption.
In theory, socialism is presented as the path toward communism. Lenin himself made that clear. In practice, both systems collapse into the same ugly reality: centralized power, destroyed incentives, political favoritism, and ordinary people paying the price for elite fantasies.
Neither communism nor socialism has ever worked in its pure form. Not once. Every surviving version today has had to drag some significant capitalist mechanism into its “utopian” system just to keep the lights on. That alone should tell us something.
The theory sounds noble. The history is a graveyard. Just like Mr. Owen rather quickly discovered.
The only hope is that Republicans can find, support, and make room for young conservatives as a counterbalance. The aged have held on to the political parties far too long.
The Red-Green coalition wants young Americans to believe socialism is new, moral, and sophisticated. It is not. It is an old wreck with fresh graphics. New Harmony proved the central problem long before Marxism drenched the 20th century in blood: when planners replace prices and common ownership replaces responsibility, scarcity, resentment, and coercion follow. The DSA crowd says “Denmark,” but its platform points toward control, dependency, anti-police politics, open borders, and administrative power. Capitalism is not utopia. It is reality disciplined by incentives, property, work, family, faith, and freedom. America already paid this tuition. Decline to re-enroll.