by gsf_emergency_4 | 2025-11-09 11:31:55+00:00
Goog translate gets you back the original up to tense, unreal <-> inauthentic, contract <-> compact etc

https://archive.ph/qoJqJ

Peter Thiel: Capitalism Doesn't Work on Young People Conan Xin Conan Xin

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The original article is "Peter Thiel: Capitalism Isn't Working for Young People," published by The Free Press on November 7, 2025, by Sean Fischer.

In a now widely circulated 2020 email, the Silicon Valley billionaire predicted the rise of socialism. Today, he spoke to The Free Press about how he knew this. Five years ago, young people's interest in socialism was often glossed over, attributed to a sense of entitlement or a lack of understanding of what "socialism" actually was. The rise of politicians like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the millennial generation's support for candidates like Senator Bernie Sanders, were largely ignored. But Peter Thiel is not like that. Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist behind PayPal and Palantir, has many roles: the gravitational center of Silicon Valley, a "monster" in the eyes of the left, an anti-elitist pioneer, and an early supporter of Vice President JD Vance. He is also adept at predicting turning points. In 2020, he wrote a prophetic email to Facebook, a quintessential "millennial company," urging executives like Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Nick Clegg to take seriously the appeal of socialism to young people. The email subsequently went viral online after Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, won the New York City mayoral election. “When 70 percent of millennials say they support socialism,” Thiel writes, “we need to do more than simply dismiss them as stupid, privileged, or brainwashed; we should try to understand why.” What did Thiel see in 2020 that others didn't? Was it right for millennials burdened with student debt and unable to afford homes to turn to socialism? Are we heading toward a socialist revolution? These are just some of the questions I raised during our conversation on Thursday. Our conversation is as follows, slightly edited for length and clarity.

Sean Fischer: In 2020, you wrote an email that is now going viral following Zohran Mamdani's sweeping victory in the New York City mayoral election. What was the background and inspiration behind that email?

Peter Thiel: I've presented the contents of this email in different versions over a long period of time. It didn't just appear out of thin air in 2020. When I founded Thiel Fellowship (we pay people to drop out of college) in the fall of 2010, one of the overarching policy ideas I repeatedly emphasized was the problem of runaway student debt. If you graduated in 1970 without student debt, compare that to the experience of millennials: too many people go to college, learn nothing, and end up with enormous debt. Student debt is a manifestation of this generational conflict I've discussed for a long time. The breakdown of the intergenerational contract is not limited to student debt. I think you can, like libertarians or Marxists, attribute 80% of the culture war to economic problems—and then you might be able to attribute 80% of economic problems to housing problems. Today, it is extremely difficult for young people to become homeowners. If you have extremely strict zoning laws and restrictions on new housing construction, it benefits the baby boomers whose property values are constantly rising, but is extremely detrimental to millennials. If you proletarianize young people, it's no surprise they eventually become communists.

SF: Can you talk about the concept of the “generational contract”? You recognized its collapse earlier than almost anyone else and pointed out that it could very well trigger a resurgence of interest in socialism. PT: The younger generation has been told that if they just do what the baby boomers did, everything will be fine for them. But society has changed dramatically, and things don't work the same way anymore. Housing is much more expensive. In places like New York or Silicon Valley, or anywhere the economy is really doing well and there are plenty of decent jobs, buying a house is much harder. People think everything is still working, but objectively it isn't. The baby boomers have a strange lack of curiosity about why the world no longer works for their children. It's always difficult to judge how much insincerity (malice) is involved, or just how bad the actors are. What I find strange is that people actually thought it odd that I complained about student debt in 2010, when it was already growing exponentially. National student debt was $300 billion in 2000; it's over $2 trillion today. At some point, this will collapse.

SF: Exit polls following Mamdani's victory suggest his voters were likely driven by two things: high rents and student debt. His voters were primarily college-educated urban migrants, renters, and people under 30. Does his victory validate the argument you made in your 2020 email?

PT: I am obviously biased against socialism. I don't think socialism offers any solutions to these problems. I don't think Mamdani, in particular, offers any solutions. I don't think housing can be socialized. If you just implement rent control, you'll likely have fewer homes, and eventually, houses will become more expensive. But if Mamdani has any redeeming qualities, it's that he addressed these issues. So my usual, albeit vague, answer is: the first step is to talk about these issues, even if you don't know how to deal with them. It's fair to say that the center-left to center-right establishment's inability to even discuss these issues is a failure. I'm not sure if I would say young people are pro-socialist. I would say they're less fond of capitalism than they used to be. If capitalism is seen as some kind of unfair scam, your support for it is much weaker. So in a relative sense, they're more "socialist," although I think a more accurate statement would be: capitalism doesn't work for me. Or, this thing called capitalism is just an excuse for people to take advantage of you.

SF: Putting feasibility aside, what do you think are the underlying motivations? What does it mean to feel so alienated from capitalism that you feel compelled to vote for someone even if their own policies are unworkable?

PT: I've always hesitated to generalize to all voters. But there's a part of it—even if I don't like it—that I at least find understandable. It's not some far-fetched mystery. You can't solve the student debt problem by making some marginal tweaks, like Biden tried. That won't work. And New York has made various marginal adjustments to rent control. That didn't really work either. So the problem is: maybe we should look for solutions outside the Overton window. This includes some very left-wing economics, socialist stuff. I don't think those ideas will ultimately work, but they're at least a bit more than what's currently available. Cuomo doesn't have a housing plan. He doesn't even see it as a problem. Of course, he's been in politics and government for many, many years, so it's hard not to ask: if he didn't do anything before, why is he doing something now? So, I'm not optimistic about Mamdani, but this kind of thing happens when you look for solutions outside the Overton window, relatively speaking.

SF: Many people compare President Donald Trump to Mamdani. Both led atmosphere-based campaigns, attracted some unexpected allies, and pushed for policies centered on discontent. They are both highly charismatic. These similarities illustrate what resonates most with voters in our digital age.

PT: I'm emphasizing the negative side: how "fake" other people are. Like, the average—and I'm not sure who to name—like Jeb Bush, everything is meticulously crafted in such an incredibly fake way that you can't say anything charismatic. There's a certain authenticity in Trump and Mamdani. I'm not sure they're completely self-consistent, or completely genuine. But that's precisely where establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats really dislike Trump and Mamdani: they can't even call them "unreal," because in some ways they're more real than anyone currently in power in either party. If you're like Paul Ryan and you think Trump is fake, what does that say about you? Does it mean you lack charisma, lack the ability to connect with people?

SF: In 2016, Trump came to power because of economic despair in his heartland. This week, Mamdani came to power because of economic despair in Brooklyn. Is the future of politics class struggle?

PT: There's a pretty big problem in the Midwest. Certain aspects of globalization have had a terrible and uneven impact on many Rust Belt cities in the Midwest. One of the disturbing legacies from the 28 years between 1988 and 2016, from George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and even Barack Obama, is the strange indifference and apathy people have shown towards it all. I do dislike Mamdani's socialism, but I'm not surprised. Capitalism doesn't work for many people in New York City. It doesn't work for young people. I don't think his policies will work, but I'm not surprised he won. In a sense, we're in a decades-long "political bull market," where politics is becoming increasingly intense. People are hoping to solve problems through politics. We're experiencing a relentless intensification of politics. And I hope that's not the case. It would be healthier if fewer people voted in elections. I think New York's voter turnout is quite high. I think it might be healthier if people didn't care, if it didn't matter who was mayor, and if people simply didn't vote. But we're in a political bull market. This is good for your work in the media, but it's not good for our society.

SF: Would people be healthier if they didn't vote?

PT: This is linked to a healthier society. Who's president becomes less important because if everything runs smoothly, the stakes aren't as high. It doesn't feel like a matter of life and death. Conversely, if growth is low, or very uneven, and everything feels like a zero-sum game, then the stakes and political tensions can become very high without you even realizing it. And if your camp loses the election, the consequences can be really bad. I haven't done precise research, but I imagine that political engagement was lower in the 1980s and 90s, then began to reverse at some point—perhaps 2008 was the year people started to get more involved—and that momentum has been steadily increasing ever since. This political bull market is an unfortunate reality. It's associated with some less-than-ideal things.

SF: Revolutions are often led by disgruntled, frustrated elites—Maximilian Robespierre, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong—who are moving downwards and have lower expectations of their own lives than their parents.

PT: This is vividly illustrated in the dynamics between the Baby Boomers and Millennials. Baby Boomers had wildly high expectations of themselves, and in some areas they failed. They then projected all those wild expectations onto their children in a world where achieving those expectations is completely unrealistic. In some dimensions, millennials are indeed better off than baby boomers; and our society has improved in some ways. But the gap between baby boomer parents' expectations of their children and what those children actually achieve is staggering. I don't think any generation has ever had such an extreme disparity as millennials.

SF: So, are we heading towards revolution?

PT: I still find it hard to believe because communism and fascism were youth movements. But in terms of demographics, there are far fewer young people today than in the past. People are having far fewer children. Therefore, we've become a much larger gerontocracy. This means that if the United States were to become a socialist country, it would be more like socialism for the elderly than socialism for the young, more about things like free healthcare. The word "revolution" sounds rather high-testosterone, violent, and youthful. But today, if there is any revolution, it's a revolution for grandmothers in their seventies. We'll see how much Mamdani can do as mayor of New York City. But I would say it shows a very unhealthy situation. It shows that the establishment hasn't addressed some very fundamental issues, and that the intergenerational contract has been broken. I would much rather people focus more on addressing these intergenerational problems. If all you can say is that Mamdani is a jihadist, a communist, a ridiculous young man, to me that it just shows you still don't know how to deal with housing or student debt. If that's the best you can do, you'll continue to fail.

SF: If you are surprised by the state of the United States and the world 10 years from now, what factors have led to this outcome? Can you outline for us how things can develop smoothly over the next decade?

PT: That's a somewhat unpleasant answer, but it's probably like this: the political establishment, our current leaders, will really address some of these issues, and this is the last time we'll have a conversation like this. It's not healthy if you come to me multiple times over the next decade, because that would mean these issues haven't been addressed or resolved. The reason I'm talking to you, the reason we're having this conversation, is because we both suspect this will only be the first of many conversations.