In this video, Jordan Peterson explains why young people fail to understand socialism. The Canadian psychologist argues that the failure is not simply a lack of information, but a failure of imagination: young people who have grown up in prosperous, free societies have no direct experience of the scarcity, repression and fear that socialism has produced wherever it has been tried. They judge the idea by its intentions — equality, compassion, fairness — rather than by its record.
Peterson traces the appeal of socialism to a natural human impulse: the desire for a world without suffering, without hierarchy and without the need to compete. He argues that this impulse is understandable, especially in the young, but that it ignores the realities of human nature and economics. Socialism promises to abolish the problems of life by abolishing freedom, he contends, and the result is not a paradise but a system in which power concentrates, truth is suppressed, and ordinary people pay the price.
For viewers wondering why socialism remains popular with the young despite a century of failures, this is a clear and thought-provoking answer. Peterson does not dismiss young socialists as foolish or selfish; he tries to explain what they are missing, and to invite them to look at history — and at human nature — with fresh eyes.