Posted on 07/19/2026 9:21:28 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Over the past several years, polling agencies and pundits have documented a disturbing trend: Increasingly, many Americans – especially young Americans – are struggling to comprehend the most foundational principles of economics. This growing economic illiteracy could have a potentially devastating effect on not only the country’s economic future, but its political identity and American democracy itself.
In 2022, the Cato Institute found that voters “displayed a depressing lack of understanding of basic economics,” especially when it came to the issue of inflation. This problem was particularly pronounced among young voters. In an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Samuel J. Abrams wrote that “large shares of young adults [are] unable to define inflation, explain supply constraints, or predict the effects of price controls.”
This decline in economic literacy has coincided with a dramatic rise in support for collectivist ideals – more specifically, socialist and communist policies. Polling by the organization Victims of Communism conducted in 2020 found that around 40 percent of Americans viewed socialism favorably.
Additionally, in 2025, a Cato/YouGov poll found that around 62 percent of people under the age of 30 held a favorable view of socialism with 34 percent having a favorable view of communism – the ideology responsible for roughly 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. Poll after poll shows that Americans are embracing the false promise of the “warmth of collectivism” at an alarming rate, and that the shift toward socialism is being driven by profound ignorance about basic economic realities and the universal historical record of failure of socialist regimes.
Yet there is still hope. The antidote to fallacy, confusion, and collectivist temptation is knowledge and education – specifically about economics, a discipline that was once a major part of American civic life. Anyone can learn the basics of economics, or further his or her understanding.
But before making the case as to why one should study economics, it is important to begin by briefly taking a step back to answer another important question: What is economics? The word “economics” is derived from the Greek word oikonomia, meaning “household management.” To the ancient Greeks, particularly the thinkers Aristotle and Xenophon, the idea of oikonomia was centered on people’s stewardship of resources such that they could flourish and live a good life.
Today, economics has evolved far beyond its ancient roots. It’s also a social science, concerned not with abstract equations or sterile statistics, but with human beings and the choices they make. As the late Austrian economist Percy L. Greaves, Jr. once said, “Economics is not a dry subject. It is not a dismal subject. It is not about statistics.”
As Greaves points out, economics “is about human life. It is about the ideas that motivate human beings. It is about how men act from birth until death. It is about the most important and interesting drama of all — human action.” Economics is concerned with people, their interactions with others, and how those interpersonal relationships affect the ability of a society to produce, deliver, and consume goods and services.
More specifically, economics studies how people interact, cooperate, and respond to incentives. As a field of study, it is concerned with revealing the truth and principles that allow people to find answers to problems through business and commerce.
The study of economics does not teach what the “right” policy decisions are. The “right” tax rate or interest rate is ultimately a subjective judgment. Rather, as Shawn Ritenour, a professor of economics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, puts it, “The object of economics is to discover economic principles that are true, so that policies developed in light of those principles will be suitable for achieving our goals.”
Learning economics helps us understand ourselves and the world around us. These principles are not academic abstractions. They explain the world as it is. Nobel laureate Gary Becker once said, “[Economics] will be judged on how well it helps us understand the world – and how it helps us improve it.”
The basic principles of economics go a long way toward illuminating why things are the way they are in our world. Take, for example, the famous law of supply and demand, which explains why prices rise and fall. When there is a low supply of a good and demand is high, the price of that good increases. When supply increases, the price falls.
This lesson is probably one that most Americans remember from Econ 101 – although certain members of Congress could probably use a refresher. But most Americans likely don’t know much about the law of scarcity, which outlines concepts like opportunity cost, incentives, and the margin, or the law of marginal utility, which reveals why we’re more satisfied with the first unit of a good we consume than the sixth.
These and various other economic principles can help us understand why certain individual actions and government policies have the effect that they do – and in turn make us more informed citizens and voters.
Increasing our society’s understanding of economics also helps people better detect economic fallacies and understand their damaging impact. As the economist Henry Hazlitt wrote, “Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident.”
Hazlitt hits the mark when looking at today’s situation. Socialist politicians make their case by appealing to economic fallacies – such as the idea that the government can provide anything for “free” – so they can present themselves as self-anointed saviors that can solve all of society’s problems. These fallacies are built on ideas that conflict with reality and are easily recognizable to anyone with a basic understanding of economics.
The study of economics also reveals an important truth: economic freedom and political freedom are inseparable from one another. Milton Friedman saw this when he authored his book Capitalism and Freedom.
“Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society,” Friedman wrote. “On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.”
Free market societies recognize individuals as self-governing in their capacity to make decisions through voluntary cooperation, not through the threat of coercion. Hazlitt made this point when he wrote Man vs The Welfare State. “The solution to our problems is not more paternalism, laws, decrees, and controls,” Hazlitt argued, “but the restoration of liberty and free enterprise.”
From the Soviet Union to Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, the historical record of collectivism is grim indeed. Even China, now the world’s second-largest economy, has only been able to succeed insofar as it has introduced market-oriented reforms to its socialist system. Still, U.S. per capita GDP remains roughly 6.5 times greater than China’s.
Economic freedom isn’t simply a policy preference. As Friedman said, it is a “necessary condition” for a free society, paving the way for human flourishing. A society that is economically literate understands that liberty cannot survive on economic myths. It survives on citizens who understand the principles that make freedom possible.
WIKI
The main policy Lenin used was an end to grain requisitions and instead instituted a tax (Prodnalog) on the peasants, thereby allowing them to keep and trade part of their produce. At first, this tax known was paid in kind, that is in the form of agricultural service, but as the currency became more stable in 1924, it was changed to a cash payment. This increased the peasants’ incentive to produce, and in response production jumped by 40% after the drought and famine of 1921–22.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy
Young Americans – are struggling to comprehend the most foundational principles.
Indeed many believe feral is freedom and welfare is a way of life.
I have heard rumors that Stalin hastened Lenin’s demise. It wouldn’t shock me.
And then Beria was the one who took care of Stalin.
Had a paper route in a neighbor hood full of retirees in the 70’s. They had to strictly budget. No tips, and if the paper was five minutes late, they would let you know about it. My pal, also a paperboy, couldn’t understand why I was always broke. Then he moved to that neighborhood, so we traded routes. My new customers were working folks and they paid a dollar a week for the eighty cent weekly subscription. Roles were happily reversed ;)
“I want my two dollars!”
“All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible”
“Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.”
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
H.L. Mencken
https://scripturesavvy.com/h-l-mencken-quotes/
I came across this:
“At 40 percent of the AMI, there is one studio with a monthly rent of $978 for incomes ranging from $38,400 to $51,840, and eight one-bedrooms with a monthly rent of $1,040 for incomes ranging from $41,280 to $58,320.
“At 60 percent of the AMI, there is one studio with a monthly rent of $1,521 for incomes ranging from $57,018 to $77,760; two one-bedrooms with a monthly rent of $1,622 for incomes ranging from $61,235 to $87,480; and six two-bedrooms with a monthly rent of $1,930 for incomes ranging from $73,715 to $105,000.
“At 130 percent of the AMI, there is one studio with a monthly rent of $3,423 for incomes ranging from $122,229 to $168,480; one one-bedroom with a monthly rent of $3,661 for incomes ranging from $131,143 to $189,540; and three two-bedrooms with a monthly rent of $4,376 for incomes ranging from $157,578 to $227,500.
The new neighbors quite possibly would be paying $3,336 less for rent than the type of folks that most vigorously voted in the Democratic Socialists.
The type of folks that most vigorously voted in the Democratic Socialists need to vote more carefully and they should probably do so with their feet as the other end of their bodies isn’t working right.
^^^
This!
The entire system is setup to protect imported Somalis and Boomers.
The current admin redistributed monies in the form of stimulus checks when they were last in power. Hard to more blatant socialist than that.
Americans simply don't know what a economic system is that functions without massive fingers on the scale from politicians and government. Ya can't blame the youth on that, their elders always vote for more government and the same parties.
The curse of high intelligence is having to endure the ignorance and stupidity of those who don't have it.
The middle and lower class folks on my route always tipped something. The upper middle class tipped well. The worst was the richest person on my route (and, arguably the richest in town at that time). She wouldn't even pay me for the papers. It got to the point where she had to pay the office directly and they'd let me know whether to deliver. Never once got a tip from here. I picked up a second, adjacent route, and they were mostly upper middle and upper class business owners. They tipped well. Most had built their businesses from the ground up or worked in them and inherited them and did well by their customers and employees.
“Yet there is still hope. The antidote to fallacy, confusion, and collectivist temptation is knowledge and education – specifically about economics, a discipline that was once a major part of American civic life. Anyone can learn the basics of economics, or further his or her understanding.”
Well that settles it. We are doomed.
Agreed. When I was in college (industrial engineering) all the BS classes I had to take were thought by “professors” from commie schools like Berkeley who were barely any older than me. They came straight from indoctrination camps and I cam from full time jobs since 16, the coast guard, a firefighter, and was a certified welder at the time paying for it. They were genuinely stupid people that had zero life experience. But of course they went to Berkeley so they were obviously the smartest people who ever existed. Luckily, this was before malicious grading and I got all A’s as I could run circles around them in any debate or lesson. Now.... I would hate to see what young people are being forced to sit through in college.
The average person doesn't understand that corporations do not pay income taxes. Their customers pay those taxes as part of the goods and services they purchase from that company. On every profit and loss statement there's a line at the bottom titled "Provision for Income Tax".
There's still a competitive advantage for companies in low tax states, such as Texas. Blue states such as NY & IL blithely dismiss these facts, but they will eventually pay for their policies.
So? As long as she is open about what she wants in a potential husband and both parties agree to how the domestic arrangements will be I fail to see a downside. That not wanting to work may very well include wanting to rear their children and make sure they have good schooling.
Real life is also a great source of education in economics.
Real life is also a great source of education in economics.
“Boomers”
Kids don’t pop out of the air. Each kid got created by a male and a female human, called parents.
Those parents will typically spend thousands of dollars each year supporting each kid, typically for 18 years. The parents also spend a lot of time and effort as well.
The parents would sort of like the kids to reciprocate in the future. To pay those thousands back as well to compensate for the time and effort.
This could of course be done by having the parents send monthly bills to their kids. If Social Security was done away with, that might happen. If Social Security payments get cut, some kids can expect some states to issue parent support orders.
Think of the man paying 20% of his income to support his kids (or parents).
Your 6.2% FICA and the 1.45% Medicare tax add up to far less than 20%. The employer’s 6.2% and 1.45% are passed on to the employer’s customers.
There is also the matter of school taxes. Except for about four years when living with my parents, I’ve been paying school taxes since age 18, indirectly for about six years and directly for about 40 years now.
The amount of school taxes I have and will pay is like to be fairly close to the amount of Social Security I might collect.
***************
Medicare Part B
$100 of care
$20 - patient co-pay
$80 balance
1/4th - paid for by Part B premiums
$60 balance
~25% of $100 - paid for by doctor’s and suppliers’ income tax
~$35 subsidy from third party taxpayers (such as the beneficiary’s children)
It’s a transgender midget.
Once I got on regular with the local semipro monthly tournament, I'd make $40-$50 a weekend, pretty good in 1960s dollars with no taxes.
Didn't make that much, but it covered my entertainment expenses. I'd head over to the alley after school, basically spent a couple of hours playing pinball. Rarely had homework, which I would complete in the library.
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