“Statism” is a word that obscures more than it clarifies. Conservatives and libertarians tend to use it for any government program they don’t like. But everyone who’s not an anarchist admits the need of a state of some sort. The question is what the appropriate duties of the state are.

Hence, I don’t find this column by Gene Healy (via John), fretting about the “statism” of the so-called Millenial generation, very persuasive:

In May, the Center for American Progress released a lengthy survey of polling data on Millennials, concluding that they’re a “Progressive Generation,” eager to increase federal power.

CAP is the leading Democratic think tank, so it has a vested interest in that conclusion. But they’re on to something. In the last election, 18-to-29 year-olds went for Barack Obama by a 34-point margin.

The CAP report shows that Gen Y is substantially more likely to support universal health care, labor unions, and education spending than older voters. And other surveys support CAP’s “Progressive Generation” thesis.

In 2008, the nonpartisan National Election Study asked Americans whether “the free market” or “a strong government” would better handle “today’s complex economic problems.” By a margin of 78 to 22 percent, Millennials opted for “strong government.”

Kids today are a credulous bunch. The 2007 Pew Political Values survey revealed “a generation gap in cynicism.” Where 62 percent of Americans overall view the federal government as wasteful and inefficient, just 42 percent of young people agree.

No wonder, then, that GenNext responds to President Obama’s call for “public service,” roughly translated as “a federal paycheck.”

Here, they differ dramatically from their skeptical “Generation X” predecessors. A 1999 survey asked Gen X college seniors to name their ideal employers; they “filled the entire list with for-profit businesses like Microsoft and Cisco.” What a difference a generation makes. In the same poll today, Gen Y prefers the State Department, Teach for America, and the Peace Corps. That’s a problem for a country built on the entrepreneurial spirit.

What I think is missing from Healy’s analysis (and, let it be said, I think he’s written some fantastic stuff on executive power) is any distinction between the appropriate functions of the market and the state. No one in the U.S., left, right, or center, thinks we can dispose of the market or yearns to implement a Soviet-style command economy.

But what many people–not just those naive youngsters–conclude is that the market does not, left to its own devices, magically solve our “complex economic problems.” What exactly is the “free market” solution to the fact that tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance? Or to environmental problems? Or to ensuring an adequate education for all kids? Funny how Microsoft and Cisco haven’t taken care of all this. Would these companies pick up the slack if we axed what Healy calls our “wealth-destroying Social Security system”?

Conservatives and libertarians are, of course, free to propose solutions to these problems that are more in keeping with their philosophy, but what they mostly do is deny that they are problems and/or that government has any role in addressing them. Liberals, progressives, social democrats, and others, by contrast, see a role for government in stepping into the gaps left by the market. If that’s statism, I’m happy to be counted among the statists.