Surveys consistently show that millennials are sympathetic to socialism. Do they have a case?
If you define socialism (correctly) as the public ownership of the means of production, and compare the performance of socialist and capitalist economies over the last century, it’s no contest. Socialist countries simply don’t provide their citizens with enough incentives to be productive, and companies that are owned by the public answer to too many masters to be very efficient.
That said, millennials obviously have suffered disproportionately from the effects of the Great Recession, so their complaints about the system have some merit. The real problem with the system, however, has nothing to do with the ownership of the means of production; it is that the current version of the welfare state is skewed towards the protection of the elderly, and has little to offer them. As the boomers age and become even more dependent on handouts from millennials, this problem is going to get even worse.
Bernie Sanders unquestionably has a Marxist frame of reference, but his actual program focuses more on the expansion of the welfare state to younger people than on truly socialist measures. His support consequently comes mostly from millennials. It makes perfect sense.