By David J. Butler

The rapid rise of the Democratic Socialists of America is one of the more curious political developments of our time. An ideology whose economic failures are among the best documented in modern history is suddenly fashionable again. DSA-backed candidates are winning primaries. Young voters increasingly speak of socialism not as a cautionary tale, but as a hopeful alternative.

The obvious question is why. The answer has surprisingly little to do with economics.

Every generation inherits a world it did not build. It inherits freedoms it did not secure, prosperity it did not create and institutions it did not design. When those institutions succeed, they quietly disappear into the background. We notice what is broken far more readily than what quietly works.

That is the paradox of successful civilizations. Their greatest achievements eventually become so familiar that they are mistaken for the natural order of things rather than remarkable historical accomplishments.

America is hardly the first society to experience this phenomenon. But today’s embrace of democratic socialism illustrates it perfectly.

Most young Americans have no firsthand experience with socialism as a governing system. They know it primarily as an idea. The Berlin Wall, Soviet bread lines, Eastern Europe’s stagnation and Venezuela’s collapse belong to history books, documentaries and YouTube clips. They are studied, if at all, as distant episodes rather than lived realities.

Ideas are almost always more attractive than their consequences.

That helps explain why today’s socialism bears little resemblance to yesterday’s. Twentieth-century socialist movements often arose from deprivation, repression and political upheaval. America’s new socialism has emerged in one of the wealthiest societies in history. It flourishes on affluent campuses, among highly educated professionals and within a generation that has inherited unprecedented freedom and prosperity.

That is not hypocrisy. It is irony.

The poor have always searched for opportunity. Prosperous societies give their children the luxury of searching instead for meaning, identity and moral purpose.

Many young Americans are responding to real frustrations. Housing costs are crushing. Student debt is burdensome. Economic mobility feels less certain. Trust in institutions has eroded. Loneliness has become a defining feature of modern life. Those concerns deserve serious attention.

But identifying genuine problems does not validate every proposed solution.

The DSA has become politically successful not because it has demonstrated socialism’s practical superiority, but because it has transformed socialism into a moral language. It promises fairness instead of inequality, community instead of alienation and justice instead of privilege. Increasingly, socialism is presented less as an economic system than as evidence of personal virtue.

That distinction matters because moral conviction and economic success are not the same. It is relatively easy to promise equality, fairness and security. Governing requires something far more difficult: producing prosperity while preserving liberty.

History suggests those goals have proved far harder for socialist governments than socialist movements have been willing to acknowledge.

One of the great intellectual asymmetries of modern politics is that capitalism and socialism are judged by entirely different standards. Capitalism is evaluated by its failures. Every recession, every layoff, every billionaire and every inequality become evidence against it. Socialism is judged largely by its intentions. When socialist experiments fail, the explanation is rarely socialism itself but rather poor leadership, hostile outsiders or the familiar claim that “real socialism has never been tried.”

No other governing philosophy enjoys so many second chances.

Imagine applying that same standard to capitalism. Every recession would be dismissed as “not real capitalism.” Every financial crisis would be blamed on politicians who failed to implement capitalism correctly. No serious person would accept such reasoning. Yet socialism alone is repeatedly judged by what it hopes to achieve rather than by what it has actually achieved. That is not intellectual rigor. It is historical favoritism.

The DSA is not the cause of that historical blind spot. It is its beneficiary.

Capitalism is deeply imperfect. It creates inequality, rewards talent unevenly and leaves some people behind. Every serious defender of markets acknowledges those shortcomings. But capitalism has also lifted billions out of poverty, transformed medicine, communications and technology, and produced levels of prosperity unprecedented in human history.

Perhaps its greatest achievement is that it has made those achievements seem ordinary.

Nearly two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that prosperous democracies gradually become more sensitive to inequality than grateful for abundance. As societies grow richer, people naturally compare themselves less with the past than with neighbors who have more. Relative disadvantage becomes more visible than absolute progress.

The DSA has skillfully tapped into that psychology. It correctly diagnoses many of society’s frustrations. But diagnosis is not prescription. Winning primaries is one thing. Governing cities, states or perhaps eventually a nation is another. Campaigns are built on aspirations. Governments are judged by outcomes. History suggests the distance between those two realities can be painfully wide.

Every generation has the right — even the obligation — to question inherited ideas. But it also has the obligation to understand them before discarding them. Prosperity can be inherited. Historical understanding cannot.

The children of capitalism are free to reject the economic system that produced their prosperity. That freedom is, after all, one of capitalism’s greatest achievements.

But before embracing socialism once again, they should first understand why so many millions of people spent the last century trying so desperately to escape it.

David J. Butler is an attorney. He is president of Dvash Consulting, LLC and a member of the ownership group of Mid-Atlantic Media, which owns and publishes Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.