Democratic Party Realignment

Economist editorial warns Gen Z socialism threatens capitalism

• The Economist published a cover editorial on June 9 calling "Gen-Z socialism" a "me-first doctrine" and urging free-market liberals to mount a defense of capitalism as "an urgent task."
• The editorial characterized young socialists as holding "a zero-sum mindset, where a better outcome comes not from creating but from taking" and said they are "uninterested in letting the market rip and redistributing the proceeds."
• Progressive commentator Normon Solomon, writing in The Guardian, criticized the editorial and noted that The Economist is partly owned by Exor, the Agnelli-family investment firm with $38 billion in net assets, and by Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith, whose personal net worth is $6.9 billion.
• Solomon cited Feeding America data that one in five children in the U.S. "don't have enough to eat" and Trussell Trust survey data showing 14 million people in the U.K. faced hunger in the past year.
• The Economist's editorial stated that "resisting Gen-Z socialism is therefore an urgent task" and argued that "a robust defence of the ideas that have brought unprecedented riches has barely been tried."