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Just two decades ago, the mere suggestion of a major presidential candidate proposing socialist policies would have been political suicide. But this year, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, received applause when she unveiled an economic agenda straight out of the socialist playbook, which includes price controls, $25,000 government hand-outs to buy homes, and economy-crushing taxes, to name a few.
This isn’t just a seismic shift in the Democratic Party. It’s a shift in the values that once defined the United States, a country where a growing number of Americans support socialist policies. As a professor, I can tell you the U.S. education system is the root cause of this new reality.
Most Americans have gone through a failed education system that never properly taught them about the concepts of liberty, self-government, self-reliance, free enterprise, and capitalism. A Pew Research Center survey revealed that 44% of individuals aged 18-29 have a positive view of socialism, while only 40% hold a positive view of capitalism. Even 23% of Republicans or those that lean Republican have a favorable view of socialism. According to a recent YouGov survey of Harris’s economic policies, many people approve of government price controls, including 64% that strongly or somewhat support capping increases on food and grocery prices.
This shift is no accident. It is the result of a deliberate effort by some in education to denigrate capitalism while romanticizing socialism. This has left many young Americans ignorant of the historical and current realities of socialism and communism. These systems have consistently led to widespread misery, despair, and death. As Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) warned in 2023, “It is undeniable that the ideals of socialism are being taught as a viable economic and political model in some institutions around America.”
There are educators and institutions that equate capitalism with racism, white supremacy, and colonialism. For example, visiting professor Amna Akbar, who will be teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School this fall and Harvard University in spring 2025, believes policing is central to “the agenda of racial capitalism and the devaluation of black life.”
Columbia University professor Mohamed Abdou has advocated “revolutionary alternatives” to capitalism and what he deems “settler colonialism.”
A Marquette University professor, Jodi Melamed, linked individual liberty to “capitalist violence.”
Spelman College’s summer reading list included a book that promotes anticapitalism propaganda and equates slavery and capitalism to the rise of American power. California Polytechnic State University offers a “Whiteness Accountability Space” program that equates capitalism to oppression.
Americans should be horrified at the prospect of socialism because it endangers the very freedoms and prosperity that have made America the most exceptional nation in the world. But that’s not what they are being taught. Few educators introduce young minds to the thoughts of Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Thomas Sowell.
Meanwhile, colleges celebrate Marxist tyrants. At the University of California, Berkeley, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty can join the Marxist Working Group. New York University, Yale University, and other universities also host Marxist Working Groups. If you’re visiting the University of California, San Diego, you can eat at the Che Café, which is named after the Marxist Argentinian dictator and mass murderer Che Guevara, or perhaps you can visit the Mao Zedong bust at Washburn University.
Regrettably, many young Americans are completely unaware that the very same price controls Harris is promoting were implemented in the Soviet Union, Mao’s communist China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Kim Jong’s North Korea, and most recently in Maduro’s Venezuela, where the nation went from the richest country in South America to one of the poorest.
Despite Harris’s attempt to repackage socialism under the guise of a “care economy,” the dangers of these policies remain unchanged and threaten the principles that have defined America.
We must reclaim our education system by teaching the facts about socialism and free markets: Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty, while socialism has led to poverty, famine, and death. Turning the tide of indoctrination will take time, but I am confident that if we return to teaching the facts, good and bad, and nurture critical thinking skills, American citizens will see the light and reject the socialist ideology that has infiltrated America. The future of our republic depends on it.
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Nicholas Giordano is a political science professor at Suffolk Community College and a Leadership Institute Campus Reform Higher Education fellow.
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