Socialism isn't Making a Comeback. It Never Went Away.

A simple theory of Socialism's "new" popularity

Zohran Mamdani’s surprising victory over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s democratic mayoral primary has provoked lots of theorizing about why socialism is rising in popularity among the youth. Tyler Cowen argues that American society has become more negative overall, and that young people are therefore hungry for any change from the status quo. I think there’s truth to that. Others have argued that it’s because the price of homes has risen faster than incomes. More on that later.

My theory is simpler: it’s not that young people are suddenly getting into socialism, it’s that older people were turned off to it for specific, contingent reasons. And now it is just returning to its default level of popularity.

Socialism is an inherently popular message. It’s analogous to the idea of the afterlife. The notion of an afterlife is part of almost every religion, including religions that sprang up independent of one another. We love it because we fear (and cannot accept) death. So from the POV of human psychology, the question is not why people like the idea of an afterlife; the question is why atheists reject it.

Similarly, socialism promises to take from the rich and give to the poor. Which is to say, it promises not only “free stuff,” but also a more equal society. Critics of socialism often highlight the first half without realizing the importance of the second. The human instinct for fairness is deep-seated and evolutionarily ancient. Parents notice how naturally it comes to their children to complain that their sibling got more than they did. It doesn’t need to be taught.

Tocqueville was on to something when he argued that the idea of equality had a deep magnetic pull that (ironically) would only strengthen as American society became more equal. “Take from the rich and give to the poor”, like the afterlife and major thirds, sounds extremely good to the human ear.

Consider that since WWII, socialism has won elections fair and square––too many to tally here––on every inhabited continent in situations too diverse for its appeal to be explained by the particular circumstances of any given country. And even in cases of violent takeovers and civil wars, communists several times defeated rival groups by winning the hearts and minds of the peasants with their superior messaging.

So the question is not why young people like socialism. That requires no explanation. The real question is why older people don’t.

For some groups, the answer is obvious: They lived through socialism and saw it ruin their countries. Talk to anyone of a certain age from Cuba, Venezuela, or Eastern Europe, and you will often find that they don’t just dislike socialism; they hate it. They are totally immune to its charms.

For Americans, my theory is that those over ~55 years-old lived through the last days of Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the undeniable victory of capitalism over socialism/communism, and the roaring ‘90s. If that is a part of your individual political memory, then it is hard to hear “socialism” as having anything but a negative connotation––even if it’s more mildly negative than for a Cuban refugee.

Let’s look briefly at the other theories. One is that the price of housing has risen faster than incomes. So Gen Z may be able to afford Netflix and Spotify (and yes, it would have cost thousands to get all that content in the ‘90s!), but they still can’t buy a home like their parents and grandparents could. That matters.

But if that’s the source of discontent, then why the turn towards socialism as opposed to, say, abundance, which actually has evidence-backed solutions for housing affordability? I submit that it’s because socialism has an inbuilt messaging advantage over deregulation, even if deregulation has a much better track record.

Another theory is that kids-these-days just aren’t educated about economics. Again, true enough. But I don’t think this is relevant given that our parents generation was not all that Econ-literate either. After all, who was Bryan Caplan writing about in his great 2007 book The Myth of the Rational Voter? Not Gen Z!

To sum up, I’m arguing that socialism is by default a winning political message for reasons having to do with human nature––except in cases where people have lived the reality of socialism’s failure firsthand. “Take from the rich and give to the poor” is simply hard to compete with. If I’m right, then we can expect the popularity of socialism to rise as generational turnover unfolds––until it reaches a tipping point where the young experience the reality of its failures firsthand and mount a backlash.

There’s no reason to be fatalist about this though. I think "Abundance” is a great left-coded alternative to socialism. But it has to find a way compete with one of the oldest and most successful messages in (post-Industrial Revolution) politics.