The Spectre of Gen Z Socialism is Haunting the World … According to the Economist

The magazine writes: ‘Resisting Gen-Z socialism is therefore an urgent task.’ That urgency must outweigh any urgency of feeding hungry people

By Norman Solomon, The Guardian

A spectre is haunting Europe and America – the spectre of gen Z socialism.

That’s the urgent warning from the Economist in a new cover-story editorial, How to fight back against gen Z socialism. Alarmed by a youthful threat to the established order, the magazine is calling for heightened vigilance from defenders of private enterprise.

“Gen-Z socialism is a me-first doctrine,” says the editorial, unlike the selfless doctrine of capitalism. The young socialists have succumbed to “a zero-sum mindset, where a better outcome comes not from creating but from taking”.

Taking, we are to understand, is frowned upon in the capitalist system. And what better way to instill wisdom in gen Z than to set a good example by creating without taking?

Those with stakes in the Economist itself are cases in point.

The investment company Exor, controlled by one family with $38bn in net assets, has the biggest stake in the magazine. Meanwhile, the investor with more than a quarter interest in the Economist, the Canadian businessperson Stephen Smith, has a personal net worth of $6.9bn.

Of course, young socialist hotheads might carp that in the UK, where the Economist is based, the overall poverty rate is 21%, while among children it’s 31%. But cooler heads prevail among the Economist’s editorial writers, who lambast the idea that “spending can be paid for by the richest”. They opt for stability by not getting carried away with fanciful notions.