One of the topics of American culture surfacing recently is that of increasing percentages of young people embracing socialism as a desirable policy for our future, as much as 40 plus percent. This is not terribly surprising to me since students do not most likely receive much if any financial education from their parents anymore and few school regimens contain it even through high school.
Our United States government already practices a certain amount of socialism. In my mind, socialism is the government controlling as much human decision-making and behavior as possible and financing itself by taking as much as possible from those who have, and empowering itself by giving as much as possible to those who do not have. This is certainly not a clinical definition, but it covers the primary principles and effects.
How can one explain this to a young person? The best way I have heard is to give a task to both a juvenile go-getter and a lazy juvenile. Let the first work hard at the task and do their best while the other does as little as possible. When the task is finished, give each one the same reward. The latter lazy youth will love it while the other will cry, This is not fair! Explain they are absolutely correct. And oh, by the way, this is the effect of Socialism.
The Biden-Harris administration provides a persistent, but sad attempt to accomplish a socialistic gift by forgiving millions in lawfully acquired student debt. It was absurd for the government to push every youth to obtain a college education, but it did not hold a gun to anyone’s head to enroll and borrow thousands of dollars.
I saw a video this past week of Mike Rowe, a conservative expert in many aspects of labor, discussing this with Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil asked who pays the cost of a student debt forgiveness. Rowe replied it is those who did not attend college, but engage in trades or work, or those who are paying or have paid their debts.
I will also use a more capitalistic example of life choices. I know a young woman who decided to become a physician. She earlier had interest in both English and Medicine. Therefore, she spent an extra year of college obtaining additional science courses necessary for Medicine.
She next attended four years of medical school and the transition year. She decided to specialize in either Radiology or Anesthesiology and chose Radiology. She then spent four years of Radiology residency and decided to specialize even further in Neuroradiology. That required an additional year of training called a Fellowship.
Even though one is paid a small salary for work in residency and fellowship, she finished that track with several hundred thousands of student debt. (Yes, I admit that the student debt system has government benefits built into it which can be described as socialistic. See paragraph two above.)
When she began her private practice, she began paying her student debt as quickly as possible. She earns a lot of money now, but she took the time and risk of 11 years of her life after high school to get the opportunity to do so. Capitalism is built upon individual initiative and decisions, meritocracy, and a lot of hard work. I would rather have her read my scans and X-rays than someone who does not have to pay the price. Which system do you want to promote?
(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)