Dear Millennials: Socialism Isn't What You Think It Is

Schumpeter warned that socialism might ultimately prevail
over capitalism, for four reasons. Creative disruption is
rarely popular. Capitalism itself tends towards oligopoly.
Intellectuals are susceptible to socialism. So are many
bureaucrats and politicians. Socialism had manifestly failed
everywhere it had been tried by the 1980s, apparently
proving Schumpeter wrong. But the adverse consequences
of the 2008-9 financial crisis, combined with the left-wing
bias of much Western education, have led to a revival of
interest in socialism among young people. However, what
young Americans mean by ‘socialism’ is not the state taking
over ownership of the means of production. They merely
aspire to policies on healthcare and education that imply a
more European system of fiscal redistribution. They fail to
grasp that the defining feature of socialism is the violation of
property rights. To an extent Schumpeter underestimated,
socialism’s greatest weakness is its incompatibility with the
rule of law