Well let’s be honest - what has “free market capitalism” represented for younger people in recent times? What values have some the most strident free-marketers promoted?
Mass-immigration that swamps the lower end of the job market and changes the nation’s demographics?
Social liberalism, as we recently saw with the “revolt of the CEOs” in Indiana?
The massive, gleeful offshoring of jobs and the relentless pursuit of globalism and “free trade” that only seems to gut the working classes?
The erosion of local/community values and businesses and the promotion of bland, standardized, liberal-oriented globalist firms?
Massive financial/auto/etc. firm bailouts, but only for the biggest “players”?
Have our modern corporate executives been capable stewards of the gifts and advantages conferred to them by the American system, or have they been abusing those privileges?
I can see why younger people would be very cynical about all of this.
National Socialism is “Socialism” + “Corporatism”. There is nothing “free market” about any of our country’s economic moves in a very long time. We have been riding the slippery slope to socialism and we appear to have arrived.
You’re right; 20+ years ago business professors told us we’d be the first generation with a lower standard of living than our parents, and they were right. I’m amazed at how many young people today will never buy a new car, never mind have a child or buy a home. The problem is that they don’t understand cause & effect (though as they age they are starting to see the light).
Capitalism hasn’t been kind to American workers, especially young ones; I feel lucky to have a job from the “before-times”, with decent pay and benefits. A lot of Asians are being imported to take Americans’ jobs in the financial sector, and I couldn’t imagine looking for work today with our “replacement white-collar workers” being trafficked here (just as many blue-collar workers were idled by Mexicans as the “replacement blue-collar workers).