Are the young supporters of Bernie Sanders socialist?

In a word, prefaced by an expletive, hell no!

But why?

Because socialism means many things to many people — there is socialist political ideology, socialist economic policy, and so much more.

Per Wikipedia:

Socialism is a variety of social and economic systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production; as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim at their establishment. Social ownership may refer to forms of public, cooperative, or collective ownership; to citizen ownership of equity; or to any combination of these. Although there are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.

But before I go any further on this, let me show you what a traditional, intellectually honest, analysis looks like.

Nate Silver asks a similar question of why young democrats love Bernie Sanders, and rigorously assesses the data available to him.

Unfortunately, his assessment is kind of inconclusive when you look at the question through traditional mechanisms and understandings of existing political ideology and political labels.

Nate finds that:

[V]iews of socialism are highly correlated with a voter’s age. According to a May 2015 YouGov poll, conducted just before Sanders launched his campaign, a plurality of voters aged 18 to 29 had a favorable view of socialism. But among voters 65 and older, just 15 percent viewed socialism favorably, to 70 percent unfavorably.

But he goes on to find that young voters don’t necessarily back socialist economics.

His entire analysis is worth a read but a couple of excerpts encapsulate his conclusions:

The cynical interpretation of this is that the appeal of both “socialism” and “libertarianism” to younger Americans is more a matter of the labels than the policy substance.

***

A young, secular white voter might not have a natural partisan identity, however, while surrounded by relatively successful peers. In part, then, the “revolutions” that both Sanders and Paul speak of are revolutions of rising expectations.

What do you think? Is this a sea change in expectations or not? Wasn’t that the narrative for the swelling of support among young voters for President Obama?

I think something wholly different is at play — something far more sophisticated and enduring than just rising expectations.

We can see this as another data point for the emergence of an entirely new philosophy.

I’ve written about this philosophy before here. It’s called, inelegantly, Networkism.

But then, how does this relate to Bernie’s socialist identity?

It is not so much that the youth has become more socialist and so Bernie Sanders’ time has come. Rather, maybe the Bernie Sanders story shows in real time how this ideological shift is happening. Maybe the real story is that this is a real shift in world philosophy. This shift is not equal distribution of resources through socialist economic systems. That’s old timey.

I think it bears repeating that social ownership is the common element shared by the various forms of socialism. Maybe we’re onto something there.

I believe that this philosophical shift is the shift to the perspective (imbued in everything we are and everything we do and create) that we are the common owners of our common social fabric, and as common owners we choose to uphold our society and advance it, all of it.

We will do so as individuals in the companies we work for, the products we acquire, the politicians we support. We will do so as entrepreneurs in the companies we create, by embedding the purpose of advancing society at large, in who we are as individuals, in who we are as companies, in how we create technology, in how we deploy it, in how we create new networks and new regimes, in how we displace the old, brittle structures that support the rent seeking economies of old.

Supporting Bernie Sanders, a socialist, is not support for socialism. It is the support for the concept that our core purpose is not to maximize our own well being through rent seeking but rather as humane individuals pursuing our happiness in a way that maximizes the benefits to our society as a whole.

This is so obviously distinct from what it means to be a Hillary Clinton supporter, who has to stand behind her Super PACs, Goldman Sachs, rent seeking, and politics and business as usual.

The world is changing because the young generations are changing it. The young generations are changing it because there is a new philosophy in town, the philosophy of Networkism.

Networkism is in essence a shift in perspective from the Individual to the Relational. Specifically, this shift is from today’s individual-based society (including social systems that are largely based on maximizing gains to individual actors) to a relational-based society (creating social systems that are largely based on maximizing gains for society at large).

One of the major findings in this philosophy is that there’s this emergent sense of higher purpose among our youth.

It is what drives the ideals and behaviors of us young generations.

It is what is embedded in the new exponential organizations who are changing the world by creating new networks and unleashing powerful creative destruction.

This higher purpose manifests as a determination — as in I’m determined to succeed in a way that benefits society as a whole, and not just myself or my company.

This higher purpose is why Bernie Sanders is attracting young voters. Because he’s the candidate that gets them closest to this philosophy that they hold so dearly, whether they know it or not.

Please read my longer work on this philosophy here, comment on it, enhance it, and let’s pursue it in everything we do. It is a common and we need to advance it together.

The culmination of a new philosophical outlook harnessing new technologies through new organization types will drive forward exponential gains for humanity.

— We, the Enlightened Generations