Something new is stirring on the left. A fresh crop of socialists want to remake the economy with price controls, hefty wealth taxes and a spree of nationalisations. Supercharged by fury over Gaza, they are winning voters at a formidable pace. Many rose to prominence only recently, like Zack Polanski, who leads the Green Party in Britain, or Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York. Others are long-standing political fixtures: the septuagenarian Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon is on his fourth swing at the French presidency, but thumping support from the 20-somethings of \u201cGeneration Z\u201d has put the Elys\u00e9e back in his sights again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Call it Gen-Z socialism<\/a>. Not because all its adherents are young\u2014or because it is new for young people to lean leftward\u2014but because it is the brand of leftism, made for the TikTok era, that today\u2019s young revolutionaries support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Forget weighty collectivist ideals or seizing the means of production. Gen-Z socialism is a me-first doctrine. Climate change and race, preoccupations of the 2010s and early 2020s, are now much more peripheral concerns. So are\u00a0social issues, barring Gaza<\/a>. Angst about inflation, housing and artificial intelligence have replaced all that with something cruder. \u201cThis country is awash in wealth,\u201d says Avi Lewis, freshly elected leader of the New Democratic Party in Canada, a country where productivity has been all but flat for a decade. \u201cWe can have nice things.\u201d Saying that prices should be capped to keep your bills down while someone else pays for your public services is a seductive, shareable message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> Gen-Z socialism is wrong about how to fix the problems of capitalism. It must be resisted, because it is a profound threat to prosperity https:\/\/t.co\/6n1i5xrJV2<\/a><\/p>— The Economist (@TheEconomist) June 4, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>