Podcast 98
The American culture is changing with newer generations. Research conducted by Gallup has discovered that 51% of millennials prefer socialism. With an older generation getting ready to pass the torch why are millennials in love with Socialism? Front Porch Politics will discuss the history of Socialism. Podcast 98 will discuss the Millenial love for Socialism, and why the history of Socialism may save our country from Socialist Democrats.
America’s Millennial Love of Socialism
Americans today are more closely divided than they were earlier in the last century. Current American citizens were asked whether some form of socialism would be a good or bad thing for the country. While 51% of U.S. adults say socialism would be a bad thing for the country, 43% believe it would be a good thing. Those results contrast with a 1942 Roper/Fortune survey that found 40% describing socialism as a bad thing, 25% a good thing and 34% not having an opinion.
The History of Socialism
The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution. Socialism came from the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels in 1848. This was written just before the Revolutions of 1848 swept Europe. In the last third of the 19th century, social democratic parties arose in Europe, drawing mainly from Marxism. The Australian Labor Party was the world’s first elected socialist party when it formed government in 1899.
The Soviet Union and the communist parties around the world mainly came to represent socialism in terms of the Soviet model of economic development and the creation of centrally planned economies. Socialism was a state that owns all the means of production. People argued that capitalism had been abolished. Socialist governments established a mixed economy with partial nationalizations and social welfare.
History of Socialism in America
In the Presidential election of 1912, Eugene V. Debs received 5.99% of the popular vote . while his total of 913,693 votes in the 1920 campaign, although smaller percentage-wise, remains the all-time high for a Socialist Party candidate in the United States. The election of 2020 stands to prove if this number will be broken. Millennials’ love of Socialism has rebirthed itself.
In the United States, the Communist Party USA was formed in 1919 from former members of the Socialist Party of America. One of the founders, James Cannon, later became the leader of Trotskyist forces outside the Soviet Union. During the Great Depression America saw a rise in socialism on a national scale. The socialism that was birthed in American did not resemble the socialism of today’s millennials.