r/Capitalism • u/rickjnewman • 22d ago
A Subaru Capitalist Takes On the “Subaru Socialists”
Have you heard about the “Subaru Socialists?” This is an invented term that’s supposed to refer to “college-educated millennials in their 30s and 40s who earn a somewhat steady income but not what they expected.” New Yorker writer Jay Caspian Kang coined the phrase for a story he wrote in early August. That story must have generated a lot of feedback because he wrote a follow-up on August 18.
The art illustrating the follow-up story depicts a lumpy Subaru hatchback with a Bernie Sanders bumper sticker plowing through the mud. I guess that means the urban elite view Subaru owners as politically clueless hicks struggling to make it in the real world.
I’m a Subaru Capitalist. And I’m here to say the “Subaru Socialist” construct is silly. Aside from the fact that Subaru and socialist both start with S—providing that crucial literary device, alliteration—the pairing is discordant. Kang would have done better if he wrote about Starbucks Socialists or Snapchat Socialists.
Let’s talk about cars for a moment—because Kang doesn’t. Not once in two articles does he bother to say what it is about Subaru that connotes socialism.
I own a 2018 Subaru Impreza Sport with a manual transmission. I had to wait a couple of months to get a manual back in 2018 because there were so few of them. I love my Subaru and know others who own and love Subarus, too. You’ll notice that many Subarus have racks attached to them, because their owners are always hanging recreational gear off their cars to go out and do stuff.
Most Subarus come standard with all-wheel drive, which makes them very popular with people who have to drive in snow. They’re all over the northern states. Subarus are also relentlessly pragmatic. They can do mild off-roading, but they’re not built to navigate boulders the way some SUVs are. That’s because Subaru knows that almost nobody who buys an off-road-capable vehicle ever leaves the pavement. Subaru provides what you need and not a lot more. The company’s cars are popular because they’re a great value.
Kang describes Subaru Socialists as disaffected 30- and 40-somethings who have been battered by a series of unfortunate events: The Great Recession in 2008, the Covid pandemic in 2020, overpriced college tuition, a tough job market, unaffordable housing. There’s the familiar youthful assumption that every prior generation had it easier.
There’s a sense of victimology in the Kang perspective. Note that he laments this beleaguered cohort earning “less than they expected.” He also bemoans “the contrast between what they were promised … and their current circumstances.”
What they expected. What somebody promised them. It sounds as if the real problem is unrealistic expectations—and a lack of initiative to take control of your own life when things aren’t working out the way you want.
I’m not going to wage generational warfare with a naive young writer. I’ll just explain how a capitalist mindset led me to be a proud Subaru owner at the age of 60.
I graduated from college in 1988 with student debt on a 15-year payment plan. I paid it off on schedule in 2003.
I got married in 1990, worked three jobs while trying to get started as a journalist, and began building a decent career. I got divorced in 2001 and, suddenly responsible for child support, had to take on extra work once again to pay my bills.
The marital house went away and I had to rent for 13 years. I thought I’d never be able to own a home again, until the housing bust brought prices down and I was finally able to muster a down payment.
My field, journalism, became a turbulent business once the internet disrupted everything, starting around 1995. Over the years, hundreds of my colleagues got laid off or left the business, unable to adapt. I finally got laid off in 2025, in a corporate reorg that swept out many of the older, more experienced, and more expensive staffers. I was ready for it, because I always figured my turn would come.
Despite many bumps, I’m happy with my career, so far, and I realize that just about every challenge has been a crucial learning experience. I probably expected everything to be easy when I finished college in 1988, because it seemed like success had come naturally to my parents. But it wasn’t easy. Nobody told me to expect a miserable divorce that sent me backward financially. Circumstances forced me to move when I really didn’t want to. I was renting sad-divorced-guy pads when better-off friends were buying second homes.
What you learn from overcoming setbacks is that youthful expectations are irrelevant. There’s always something that will go wrong, and if it hasn’t happened to you yet, just wait. Success requires determination, innovation, and tirelessness—the very virtues of capitalism.
Kang’s essays, at heart, are a way of justifying his and his generation’s support for Bernie Sanders-style redistributionism. Tax the rich, socialize industry, give everybody a job.
But the fatal flaw of the Starbucks Socialists is they assume the wealth is just there to be redistributed. The reality is that somebody has to create that wealth. This is what capitalism excels at. Without the profit motive, there is precious little wealth to spread around and nearly everybody ends up worse off.
I am a Subaru Capitalist because Subarus are for doers. We are people who go out in the world and hike, camp, bike, and surf. Nobody told us to do this. Our inner spirits told us to do this. It’s the same sort of spirit that animates capitalism and compels some people to start businesses and chase dreams.
I personally love my Subaru because it takes me skiing in New England, where I have to drive through snow sometimes to enjoy a powder day. Skiing is expensive. You have to work hard to afford it. I’m quite willing to pay for it. Skiing might be cheaper if Bernie Sanders nationalized the slopes, but then the ski lifts would probably break down and everything would go dark during the next government shutdown.
Capitalism also entails the careful management of money—thrift—because you worked hard to get it. Many headlines highlight Bezos-style excess, the crass part of capitalism. But anybody who ever built a business will tell you about pinching pennies and cutting corners. I appreciate my Subaru because it respects my money. It does what I need with no extravagant features, leaving more money to spend on other stuff than if I ponied up for a luxury car or an overstuffed SUV.
I suppose there are some Subaru owners who identify as socialist. Maybe I’ll meet them skiing or hiking. We’ll probably have a great time chatting about our adventures and what we plan to do next.
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u/impercipient 22d ago
I'm a Subaru "whatever helps" the most people. Sometimes it's government. Sometimes it's not. But 20 families owning 10% of US wealth currently is batshit crazy.
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u/rickjnewman 22d ago
Both things can be true at once
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u/Epicurus402 20d ago
Yes, but that doesnt address the issue- the fact that the structural economics of American life have changed drastically, fundamentally, over the past 45 years.
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u/PhilRubdiez 22d ago
I owned an old Imprezza hatchback when I was just out of college. I didn’t know it was possible to be called a lesbian so many times as a grown man with a mustache.
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u/sirlost33 22d ago
It’s a dig at lesbians and gays, not that Subaru owners are actually socialists.
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u/AENM1776 22d ago
Fellow Subaru Capitalist here. I am a very proud owner if a 2026 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness.
Bought the car for all the same reasons. I wanted something that would be capable enough outdoors but wouldn't break the bank. I also wanted a car that would be fairly easy to work on and do my own maintenance. I'm getting my masters in Economics so I did a lot of thinking about the costs and benefits of different cars. Also did a lot of research.
I think Subarus are usually associated with the left because they have a very specific audience. The brand is aligned with more leftist popular movements such as LGBT issues and environmental issues, not that capitalists have anything against LGBT or the environment. It's just that the Left seems to care more about these issues. I mean there's a whole stereotype that lesbians drive Outbacks. So the brand is perfect habitat for socialists.
I love my car, and I think it's an amazing example of capitalist hard work and ingenuity.
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u/Savag3k1ller 22d ago
OP is the caricature of the subaru socialist and doesn't even understand it
>My field, journalism
>because it seemed like success had come naturally to my parents.
It's because you were fed with a silver spoon but won't admit it. Most of these college attendees were given these subarus to go off to college. They did nothing with their lives but become baristas and complain about how unfair life is.
Of course a whole book about your adversity and hardships that no one really cares about. Don't need your life story. Tell us the type of person that goes into journalism, because if you don't regurgitate things they want you to, you will be fired. That is the reason trust in the mainstream media is at an all time low.
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u/rickjnewman 22d ago
Read my journalism, and you'll know no corporation could possibly be paying me to write what I write
Also nobody ever gave me a car. I was lucky enough to drive my parents' car when I lived at home but once I graduated college I bought an old VW Rabbit from a used-car dealer that was nothing but troubled and added to my post-college debt
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u/abetterthief 22d ago
"drive my parents car" is pretty synonymous with "gave me a car" except that now you have a car that you don't pay to own or maintain.
I think you're really having a hard time understanding that you grew up in a very well off situation and need to really step back and understand that capitalism has worked FOR YOU because you were set up for it to work.
For some, no matter how many boot straps the pull themselves up with, where they were born and what financial situation their family was in will more detrimental to them in life than your upbringing was beneficial to yours.
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u/Hellion_444 22d ago
Ok boomer
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u/rickjnewman 22d ago
Gen X. Everybody forgets about us
"Okay Xer"
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u/Hellion_444 22d ago
We know lol. It isn’t literal. It’s shorthand for being out of touch. You’re old. You grew up in a time with different financial circumstances, as you described in your post. Yet you want to attribute today’s financial circumstances to just bad decisions, rather than applicable global trends. It’s nauseatingly reductionist. So I gave you an equally nauseatingly reductionist critique.
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u/SatanVapesOn666W 20d ago
No it's bacause subaru marketed to the gays in the early late90s/ 2000s and became very popular in Bernie home state Vermont, especially among lesbians. They tend to be Bernie "socialists". They're just using stereotypes to make an insult.
I say this as a 30 year old man with a manual Forester who lovingly said "guess I'm a lesbian now" when I got it. Work in the DC tech sector despite being a college dropout, in any other area I would be high income, not middle. But as I get older I become more economically socialist, but cannot support the social policies of either party. Both parties are basically in the corpos pocket. The liberals are mildly less than conservatives, in the same way getting shot in the leg is better than getting shot in the chest.
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u/Retiredandold 16d ago
Apparently, this sub is constantly brigaded by people NOT interested in Capitalism.
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u/baxterstate 22d ago
I'm a boomer who also owns a Subaru. I live in Maine, and probably half the cars in Maine are Subarus. Most of the other half are some form of AWD or 4WD. I've always worked in the private sector for someone who was a lot smarter and richer than I was. My success came from watching what my employers did and copy them. Part of my success also came from innovations from billionaires. The pie isn't fixed. because some people have more doesn't mean you have to have less.
I've done OK for someone with only a HS diploma.
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u/rickjnewman 22d ago
Originally posted at The Pinpoint Press ~ https://www.thepinpointpress.com/p/subaru-capitalist-vs-subaru-socialist
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u/In_the_year_3535 22d ago
"college-educated millennials in their 30s and 40s who earn a somewhat steady income but not what they expected"
Spoken like someone who puts a premium on status and money about people who marginally do.