Millennial ‘lifelong socialist’ calls capitalism ‘economic scheme’
Elijah Manley, a millennial who describes himself as a “lifelong socialist” believes capitalism is an “economic scheme” while socialism is about democracy and “reaping the fruit of your labor.”
“[Capitalism] is all about extracting surplus value from… laborers to workers and giving it all to a bunch of cronies at the top,” he told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday and added that “I don’t think it’s fair at all” that the rich are hoarding all of their wealth.
But it quickly turned into a debate after Manley added that there was a 937 percent increase in wage growth for CEOs but only a 10.2 percent wage growth for average workers between 1978 and 2013.
“Well, that's actually not true," said Bartiromo. "Because all incomes actually saw taxes go down with this most recent tax cut plan -- all income levels and capitalism has managed to lift millions out of poverty in the last 10 years.”
However, Manley said there are still 40 million Americans living in poverty and in his opinion Trump’s tax cuts are short term, and will “blow a hole in the deficit” and make it difficult to fund social programs, like Medicaid and Social Security and lift working people out of poverty.
Socialism is defined as government ownership, with collective decision-making, low competition and shared wealth for all. However, Manley explained that “socialism is not really government controlled… it’s more worker controlled.”
Bartiromo also asked Manley whether he is comfortable with working hard and getting paid the same as other workers. But he also believes that this is not true of socialism.
“You're getting pay according to the labor that you put in the market,” Manley explained.
“It's not true because it's all community,” replied Bartiromo.
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“That’s the definition of socialism,” he retorted.
Manley also believes that Medicare for All is a socialist program that can also be under capitalism, and is the “only sustainable model for health care that we should have. It is government run,” and he added that there is more accountability on the government.