Three years ago, I wrote a commentary about the “great relearning.” The phrase was coined by novelist Tom Wolfe who was talking about the hippies of Haight-Ashbury. They decided to toss out lessons about hygiene and monogamy. The free clinics were encountering diseases that disappeared long ago and didn’t even have a Latin medical name. To combat this, doctors at those free clinics needed to teach lessons in hygiene and sanitation.

Marian Tupy laments that the Great Relearning is necessary for basic economics. She remembers that when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the world knew that “central planning had impoverished half of Europe while markets enriched the other half.” The free market coupled with private property rights allowed human flourishing.

Unfortunately, this new generation has forgotten those lessons and will likely have to learn them again. “Voters in wealthy democracies, and the young above all, are electing self-described democratic socialists who promise to repeal economics by decree.”

What lessons have voters forgotten? Free trade is desirable because of a division of labor. Rent control is ruinous because prices pinned below market value ensure that fewer apartments are built and maintained. Public ownership of factories fails because managers risk no capital and are free to walk away. Confiscatory taxes defeat themselves because capital has feet.

These lessons (and many others) could be taught in the schools. Unfortunately, the faculty are overwhelmingly liberal. There is rarely anyone to defend sound economics. We can hope these young voters relearn these economic lessons, but the trend seems to be headed in the wrong direction.