Here is a link from the CATO institute.
This from the link:
'Perhaps the most important reason millennials are less concerned about socialism is that they associate socialism with Scandinavia, not the Soviet Union. Modern “socialism” today appears to be a gentler, kinder version. For instance, countries like Denmark, Sweden, and Norway offer a far more
generous social safety net with
much higher taxes.
In this view, government just covers people’s basic needs (from everybody’s pockets, of course), but doesn’t seize all the businesses and try to run them, or overtly attempt to control people’s consciences.
These countries actually are
not socialist, but “socialistic.” To
accommodate their massive social welfare spending, these countries opened their economies to free-market forces in the 1990s, sold off state-owned companies, eased restrictions on business start-ups, reduced barriers to trade and business regulation, and introduced more competition into health care and public services.'
I think there's confusion about what socialism actually is. As someone who grew up in the UK when major facets of businesses were state run (steel, railways, airlines) I have an idea of what it actually entails. But does anyone really think that oil and steel and transport should now be government run? Well, true socialists might. But your average millennial thinks socialism is, as noted above, policies that are more socialistic, such as universal healthcare.
And there is very little discussion about the actual details. The left thinks it's warm and fuzzy social welfare for those in need and the right accuse those same people of wanting to turn the US into some version of the old USSR.
True socialism is dead and buried. It was a utopian ideal that didn't consider the individual. But true capitalism in itself doesn't work either. Or rather it works for some but exacerbates problems for the rest. Checks and balances on capitalism with decent social policies would be a fair balance. But where you put the fulcrum is open to argument.