Socialism is Actually Bad for Zoomers

If the right wing is to be competitive among the rising generation of voters, it must address issues that matter to them. 

However, conservatives and libertarians must not succumb to the fallacy that to address legitimate problems currently monopolized by their opponents means to compromise on their principles and adopt that faction’s precepts and values. Instead, conservatives should lay out why their ideas are a better alternative. 

For example, lack of economic opportunity is a key issue for Generation Z, which has manifested in a support for socialism, capitalized on by politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders and “The Squad” in the House. Though we must deconstruct the moral messaging of socialism, we must also communicate why restricting the free market will actually make workers worse off. 

Minimum Wage Hurts Workers

The fight for a $15 per hour minimum wage has been a major progressive objective, but raising the minimum wage would hurt the workers it’s trying to protect. 

It’s an economic axiom that if something costs more, people will buy less of it (with the exception of certain luxury goods for which higher prices actually increase demand). Applied to employment, this means that raising the minimum wage will cause companies to hire fewer workers. Sometimes this effect is obfuscated by the fact that some employers will have to reduce raises and other forms of compensation rather than lay people off. 

It is contradictory that the progressives believe that companies are only interested in profit, and yet assume that if the minimum wage is increased, they will simply take a hit to their profit margins rather than lay workers off or find other ways to cut costs. 

The ultimate result of the minimum wage increasing unemployment is that it becomes harder for young people with low experience to enter the job market. 

Government Has Inflated the Price of Higher Education

Student loan debt and the high cost of college are also major concerns for Democrats. But when they argue for taxpayer-funded tuition or canceling student debt, they ignore the role the government played in the first place.

Though organic changes in the job market have made college more valuable, the increase in student aid and federal student loans has also artificially increased demand for higher education and allowed universities to increase their prices without taking a hit. In effect, the government pumping money into the education market has untethered universities from the market signals that would naturally drive prices down. The result is skyrocketing tuition prices over the past several decades.

Restricting the Free Market Overall Reduces Opportunity

To pay for programs like taxpayer-funded college, progressives support new taxes to raise revenue. It’s disputed whether they could pay for everything they propose by taxing “the rich” as they claim (The Scandinavian welfare states democratic socialists praise feature high taxes on the middle class) but taxing the rich is not without negative effects, either. Taxing the wealthy reduces their incentives to invest, innovate, and create more jobs. 

The same goes for new regulations, such as mandating paid time off. The more restrictions and paperwork businesses have to deal with, the fewer people they are going to hire.

The outcome of the government placing burdens on the economy is to slow the general productive machine that produces better, cheaper goods and services and allows for individual financial advancement. We are watching this unfold in real time with Biden’s economy.

Conservatives and libertarians need to not ignore, but rather address the issues that Gen Zers deal with, such as student loan debt and economic stagnation, and articulate why freeing up the market to create a thriving economy is the best solution. We must explain why this is not based on dislike of poor people or idolization of “the economy” as some abstract good. The economy is not just the stock market and numbers on spreadsheets, it’s food on shelves, gas in tanks, getting a job, and paying off student loans.