Something strange is happening in America.
Socialism—and, increasingly, ideas that once would have been recognized as unmistakably Marxist or communist—has found a receptive audience among a significant portion of America's youth. Capitalism is routinely portrayed as exploitative. Wealth is treated with suspicion. Private enterprise is blamed for society's inequalities. And government control over increasingly large portions of economic and social life is presented as compassionate, progressive, and even liberating.
I find this development puzzling and baffling for one simple reason: we already ran this experiment.
The twentieth century provided humanity with repeated opportunities to observe what happens when communist ideology moves from the classroom and the political rally into the machinery of government. The Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Cuba, North Korea, and other communist regimes produced different variations of the same tragic story: political repression, economic deprivation, restrictions on individual liberty, and, in the worst cases, famine, imprisonment, mass killing, and death on a staggering scale.
Yet somehow, as the generation that witnessed much of this history disappears, the ideology is finding new admirers.
Capitalism's Success—and Its Strange Unpopularity
The resurgence of socialism is even more perplexing when considered alongside capitalism's historical record.
I'll make a stronger argument than simply saying capitalism has worked better than its alternatives:
I believe capitalism, properly understood, is ideologically and morally sound. Its foundational principles do not need to be apologized for. They need to be defended.
At its core, capitalism rests upon voluntary exchange, private property, individual initiative, freedom of association, competition, and the right of human beings to benefit from the value they create. One person produces something another person wants, and—absent force or fraud—the two freely decide whether to exchange. Neither requires a government official to decide what the product should be worth or whether the transaction ought to occur.
There is profound morality in that arrangement because it begins with the dignity, agency, and freedom of the individual.
When people point to the supposed "failures of capitalism," we should therefore ask an important question:
Was capitalism actually allowed to operate?
Many problems blamed on capitalism arise in systems that have already injected distinctly statist ingredients into the marketplace: excessive and unreasonable regulation, government favoritism, barriers to competition, subsidies, political manipulation of markets, and bureaucratic welfare institutions designed to solve social and economic problems that free people, functioning markets, families, communities, charities, and private institutions may be better equipped to address.
When government distorts a market and the resulting market performs poorly, blaming capitalism is remarkably convenient.
Interfere with competition, then blame competition.
Restrict supply, then blame the market for high prices.
Create dependency through poorly designed government programs, then cite that dependency as evidence that still more government intervention is necessary.
That is not an indictment of capitalism. It is often an indictment of our unwillingness to trust capitalism, and to operate within the system as reasonable, compassionate, ethical citizens. When one makes note of capitalism's economic and social triumphs, compassion stands side-by-side with all of capitlism's driving forces.
A free society still requires laws protecting property, enforcing contracts, punishing fraud, and protecting citizens from coercion. But those protections preserve a free market rather than replace it.
And the results of economic freedom have been extraordinary.
Market economies have generated enormous prosperity, technological innovation, increased productivity, and improvements in living standards. Over the modern era, enormous numbers of human beings have escaped extreme poverty. Products and technologies once available only to society's wealthiest people—or unimaginable at any price—have become commonplace.
Consider what an ordinary American carries in his pocket. A smartphone provides instant access to much of humanity's accumulated knowledge, worldwide communication, navigation, photography, banking, entertainment, and computing capabilities that previous generations could scarcely imagine.
That didn't happen because a government planning committee decided precisely what millions of people should invent.
It happened because human beings were given enormous freedom to create, compete, invest, fail, try again, and profit when they produced something other people valued.
And yet capitalism—not communism—is increasingly treated as the system for which young Americans should apologize.
Communism Is About More Than Economics
One of the greatest mistakes in discussions about communism is treating it merely as an economic disagreement.
It isn't simply an argument about whether the top marginal tax rate should be higher or whether government should spend more money on healthcare. Nor should every person favoring a larger social safety net automatically be labeled a communist.
Communism represents something much more fundamental.
To place economic life under comprehensive collective control necessarily places tremendous power in the hands of those doing the controlling. Someone must determine what can be owned, what can be produced, how resources will be distributed, and which economic decisions individuals will be permitted to make.
History demonstrates the danger of concentrating that much economic and political power in the state.
This is precisely where collectivist ideology collides with the American experiment.
The United States was founded upon a dramatically different understanding of the relationship between the individual and government. Americans possess rights that do not originate with the state. Government exists to secure those rights, derives its legitimate authority from the governed, and must itself be constrained because political power can be abused.
Individual liberty, private property, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, representative government, constitutional restraints, and the rule of law are not incidental features of America.
They are foundational.
How Did We Forget?
This brings us to an uncomfortable question.
How did an ideology with such a devastating historical record become fashionable again in the country that spent much of the twentieth century opposing it?
Schools deserve scrutiny. Universities deserve scrutiny. Entertainment and popular culture deserve scrutiny. Political organizations and the news media deserve scrutiny.
But I believe the greatest failure may have occurred somewhere much closer to home.
Parents.
This isn't because most parents deliberately encouraged their children to become socialists or communists. Quite the opposite. Millions of American parents work extraordinarily hard to raise responsible, decent and independent children.
They teach their children right from wrong.
They emphasize education.
They encourage them to develop careers.
They advise them about money.
They talk to them about relationships, marriage and family.
They warn them about drugs, irresponsible behavior, and dangerous influences.
Yet when it comes to political philosophy, many conscientious parents suddenly adopt a completely different standard: I don't want to influence them. They should develop their own political views.
There is something admirable in that instinct. Children eventually become adults, and adults must be free to reach their own conclusions.
But independent thinking does not require parental silence.
We don't refuse to teach children morality because someday they must make their own moral decisions. We don't refuse to discuss money because someday they'll decide how to spend their own paycheck. We don't withhold career advice because their occupation ultimately belongs to them.
We teach them. We challenge them. We explain what we've learned. We expose them to consequences. And eventually, we allow them to decide for themselves.
Why should political philosophy be different?
Education Is Not Indoctrination
The answer to left-wing indoctrination should not be right-wing indoctrination.
Parents don't need to hand their children a party registration card or instruct them how to vote. They should do something much more valuable: teach them enough history, economics and civics that political slogans cannot easily manipulate them.
Teach them what happened in the Soviet Union.
Teach them about Mao's China.
Teach them what happened in Cambodia.
Teach them about the Berlin Wall and ask why governments had to build walls to prevent their own citizens from escaping.
But also teach them capitalism honestly—not as a system responsible for every bad outcome occurring within an economy bearing its name, but according to its actual principles. Teach them to distinguish between a genuinely free market and a market distorted by political favoritism, excessive regulation, government-created barriers, and state intervention.
Teach them why the Constitution limits government power.
Teach them why freedom of speech matters most when someone says something unpopular.
Teach them why property rights matter.
Teach them the difference between equality before the law and government attempting to manufacture equal outcomes.
Then encourage them to challenge everything—including their parents.
That isn't indoctrination.
That's education.
And after receiving that education, if our children reach different political conclusions than we do, that is their right as free Americans.
What We Stand to Lose
This debate isn't merely academic.
America's extraordinary capacity for innovation didn't materialize accidentally. Neither did its prosperity or its individual freedoms. They grew within institutions that rewarded experimentation, entrepreneurship, investment, competition, risk-taking, and individual initiative.
Those institutions can be weakened.
If America turns decisively against the economic and constitutional principles that helped make those achievements possible, innovation will not simply disappear from the earth. It can move somewhere else.
And some of the nations eager to inherit America's technological and economic leadership do not share America's commitment to individual liberty.
We could therefore accomplish something remarkably foolish: surrender our competitive advantage to authoritarian rivals while simultaneously importing more authoritarian ideas into our own political culture.
We could lose both prosperity and freedom.
Freedom Must Be Taught
Perhaps we became complacent because America's system worked so well.
Generations born into extraordinary freedom naturally have difficulty imagining its absence. A person who has never feared criticizing the government can easily underestimate the importance of free speech. Someone who has always been allowed to choose a profession, start a business, own property, practice a religion, or criticize political leaders may begin to regard those freedoms as permanent features of human existence.
They aren't.
History suggests something very different.
Liberty is unusual. Self-government is fragile. Prosperity can disappear. And political systems that concentrate enormous power in the name of helping ordinary people can eventually use that power against those very people.
Every generation inherits America's institutions, but no generation automatically inherits an understanding of why they matter.
That understanding must be taught.
Schools have a responsibility to teach it. Universities have a responsibility to confront history honestly. Our cultural institutions should take it seriously.
But parents have the greatest responsibility of all.
Teach your children to think for themselves.
Teach them to question authority.
Teach them to examine capitalism according to what capitalism actually proposes rather than judging it by distortions introduced by government intervention or by the misconduct of individual participants.
But don't mistake neutrality for wisdom. Don't send children into an intensely political culture without giving them the intellectual equipment necessary to understand what they're hearing.
Tell them what communism promised.
Tell them what communism produced.
Tell them what economic freedom made possible.
Tell them what America was founded to protect.
And tell them why freedom is worth defending.
Then let them decide.
That is what raising an independent thinker actually means.