Why Young Liberals Hate Capitalism—and Why They’re Wrong

Every generation eventually receives its first adult paycheck, studies the deductions, looks at the rent, looks back at the deductions, and briefly concludes that Karl Marx may have had a point.

For the average young American liberal, this revelation often occurs on a $1,300 phone while waiting for a stranger to deliver a twelve-dollar coffee from six blocks away.

She does not hate capitalism.

She hates invoices.

She hates that apartments cost money, jobs require attendance, attractive neighborhoods are already occupied, and nobody has yet created a government program that will pay her to make politically conscious ceramics in a sunlit Brooklyn loft.

What she wants is not socialism.

She wants capitalism with the consequences turned off.

1. She Thinks Socialism Means Denmark With DoorDash

When young Americans say they want socialism, they are rarely imagining the state owning farms, factories, banks, housing, newspapers, and most of the places where citizens might attempt to escape the state.

They are imagining Denmark.

More precisely, they are imagining an English-speaking Denmark where the taxes are paid by billionaires, everyone receives free therapy, the trains arrive on time, and DoorDash still brings Thai food during a blizzard.

They do not want socialism.

They want a wealthy capitalist country with better public services and no visible receipt.

That is a perfectly reasonable political argument. It is simply not the political argument they think they are making.

2. She Believes “Free” Means Nobody Paid

Free college.

Free healthcare.

Free housing.

Free childcare.

The modern socialist imagination is a magical kingdom where doctors, nurses, professors, builders, electricians, and daycare workers all report for duty because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a compelling Instagram video.

Nothing is free.

“Government-funded” means the bill has been placed inside a larger envelope, decorated with an eagle, and mailed back to the public through taxes.

Sometimes that is an excellent bargain. A civilized society should have roads, schools, emergency rooms, police, courts, and a safety net sturdy enough to catch people before they hit concrete.

But it remains a bargain.

Not a spell.

3. She Does Not Hate Capitalism. She Hates Adulthood

Her landlord wants rent on the first.

Her employer expects her to arrive on time.

The electric company has shown absolutely no interest in her emotional journey.

Someone at work used the phrase “performance review,” and she is now reasonably certain she lives under fascism.

A great deal of modern anti-capitalism is simply the shock of discovering that adulthood is not college with fewer essays.

Food costs money. Talent is not always rewarded. Some people begin life with enormous advantages. You can work hard and still fail. You can do everything properly and remain unable to afford the apartment you want.

These are real frustrations.

But abolishing private property will not make Monday morning optional.

4. She Imagines Work Would Become Nicer Under Socialism

Capitalist employment is oppressive because her boss expects her to complete tasks during working hours.

Under socialism, she imagines work becoming a gentle cooperative activity involving communal lunches, meaningful discussions, and perhaps a little pottery.

Unfortunately, socialist countries also required people to work.

The difference was that there were fewer employers, fewer career choices, less possibility of opening your own business, and considerably less sympathy when you informed the factory manager that fluorescent lighting was interfering with your boundaries.

Capitalism gives you the freedom to leave your terrible boss.

Socialism may give you one boss.

And he is also in charge of your apartment, your healthcare, your newspaper, your passport, and the police station where you will be taken after complaining about him.

5. She Could Not Survive the Loss of Consumer Choice

The average young anti-capitalist considers consumer culture spiritually empty but requires seven varieties of oat milk.

She needs ethically sourced coffee, cruelty-free mascara, vegan leather boots, vintage furniture, a mattress delivered in a box, three streaming services, same-day shipping, and a small refrigerator reserved entirely for skincare.

Then she posts that capitalism has given us nothing.

Under central planning, the Ministry of Beverages may announce that oat milk will return in November.

Perhaps.

Until then, there is powdered milk in a bag labeled MILK PRODUCT NO. 4.

The revolution has been postponed due to lactose intolerance.

6. She Wants Housing Provided—But Not That Housing

Housing is a human right.

Absolutely.

But she does not want just any housing.

She wants a charming apartment with original floors, exposed brick, good natural light, a dishwasher, in-unit laundry, no roommates, a neighborhood coffee shop, and enough space for the rescued greyhound she intends to adopt after consulting her astrologer.

Under the system she romanticizes, the Housing Allocation Office may instead assign her a concrete apartment on the eighth floor of a building named after a tractor.

It has one bedroom.

Her aunt already lives in it.

The elevator has been awaiting a replacement part since 1987.

She may file a complaint with the Housing Allocation Office, which is conveniently located inside the Housing Allocation Office.

7. She Hates Billionaires but Loves Everything They Built

The billionaire class must be abolished.

She announces this on Instagram from an iPhone while listening to Spotify, sitting in an Uber, wearing something delivered by Amazon, and checking whether her food has left the restaurant.

This does not mean billionaires should be allowed to purchase Congress, swallow entire industries, or hunt the middle class for sport.

Tax them. Regulate monopolies. Enforce labor laws. Protect competition. Stop allowing corporations to behave like medieval duchies with human-resources departments.

But perhaps admit that large-scale private enterprise has occasionally produced something more useful than a government committee studying whether to establish another government committee.

8. She Thinks Scarcity Was Invented by Republicans

Capitalism gets blamed for scarcity because prices make scarcity visible.

The apartment is expensive. The concert ticket is expensive. The handbag is expensive. The organic strawberries flown across an ocean in February are mysteriously expensive.

Socialism does not abolish scarcity.

It merely changes the way scarce things are distributed.

Instead of prices, you may get waiting lists, rationing, political connections, bribery, or a cousin named Viktor who knows somebody at the warehouse.

Capitalism says, “You cannot afford this.”

Socialism may say, “This does not officially exist.”

The first answer is cruel.

The second answer is also cruel, but accompanied by a poster of a smiling factory worker.

9. She Trusts the Government Only When Her Side Controls It

The young socialist is deeply suspicious of corporations but strangely relaxed about government power, provided the correct people are currently in government.

She wants misinformation regulated, harmful opinions removed, offensive speakers banned, troublesome employers punished, and troublesome citizens professionally destroyed.

She assumes the censorship department will always share her politics.

This is adorable.

Governments change. Definitions change. Approved opinions change. Yesterday’s protected speech becomes tomorrow’s dangerous misinformation.

The machine built to silence your enemies does not disappear when your enemies win an election.

It simply receives new management.

10. She Wants Equality With Several Personal Exceptions

Everyone should earn approximately the same amount.

Except surgeons, obviously.

And perhaps writers.

And artists.

And people with advanced degrees.

And people living in expensive cities.

And people producing culturally significant content about why everyone should earn approximately the same amount.

She supports equality but has already identified several reasons why she personally deserves a larger apartment, more interesting work, better coffee, additional travel privileges, and exemption from agricultural labor.

The collective farm needs workers.

Unfortunately, she has a podcast.

She Wants a Refund, Not a Revolution

Capitalism is not kind.

It is not your mother. It does not care about your self-esteem, your childhood wounds, or whether your landlord is emotionally available.

It is a machine.

And machines require rules, limits, maintenance, inspections, and occasionally a violent kick.

Capitalism needs competition. It needs regulation. It needs functioning institutions, affordable housing, decent schools, healthcare people can actually access, and a serious safety net. It needs governments willing to stop corporations from merging into enormous faceless organisms that own your home, your job, your groceries, and possibly your toaster.

But the answer to a badly regulated machine is not handing the entire economy to the same government that cannot renew your driver’s license without losing three forms and sending you to the wrong building.

The average young liberal does not genuinely want socialism.

She wants affordable rent, excellent healthcare, meaningful work, high wages, unlimited consumer choice, free expression, beautiful public spaces, generous vacations, abundant goods, fast delivery, and the right to complain about every last bit of it online.

In other words, she wants an extraordinarily successful capitalist society.

She just wants someone else to pay for it.

Preferably a billionaire she plans to abolish after the wedding.

Ivana 🗽