Schools Must Teach the Real-World Record of Communism to Prevent Young Americans' Attraction to Socialism
Source: "Teach students the truth about communism before socialism seduces them | Fox News." October 14, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
The author says many young Americans like socialism because schools stopped teaching what communist governments actually did, including mass deaths, shortages, and persecution. He argues that if students learned this history alongside the benefits of free markets, they would be less likely to romanticize socialism and more likely to defend freedom.
Conclusion
American schools and universities should strengthen instruction on the history and human toll of communism and socialism, because students who are taught only capitalism's shortcomings will naturally embrace socialism and will be unable to defend free markets and liberty.
Premises
- Educational institutions have quietly dropped the comparative study of economic and political systems, so the topic is now an afterthought in history and economics classes.
- A 2025 Cato Institute/YouGov survey found that 62% of Americans under 30 view socialism favorably and more than a third view communism favorably.
- Students are taught capitalism's shortcomings but not the failures and abuses of centralized state economies (shortages, concentrated bureaucratic power, persecution of religious believers, over 100 million deaths in the 20th century), so they assume socialism is the cure.
- Socialism appeals when it exists only as theory (perfect equality, generous safety nets, fairness); exposure to its real-world implementation would dispel that romanticized view.
- Free markets rely on voluntary cooperation, protect individual agency, and have lifted billions out of poverty, and economic freedom and personal liberty rise and fall together.
- A generation will not defend a system it was never taught to understand, and will not recognize the loss of freedoms it never learned to value.
Assumptions
- Young people's favorable views of socialism are caused primarily by gaps in instruction rather than by economic conditions (housing costs, debt, inequality) or other factors.
- Teaching the historical record of communist regimes will meaningfully reduce favorable views of socialism.
- Contemporary socialist policy proposals (e.g., Medicare for All, safety-net expansion) are meaningfully equivalent to or lead toward the centrally planned communist regimes taught in history.
- The author's claim that schools no longer teach this material is accurate and generalizable nationwide.
- A comparative education would be balanced and non-indoctrinating, and students would conclude in favor of capitalism once informed.
- Capitalism's record is sufficiently positive that honest comparison will favor it.