Americans still believe in the Founding—and want schools to teach capitalism

As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence nears, it looks like Americans overwhelmingly approve of their country’s cardinal principles.

That’s the top-line finding from a recent survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) about the legacy of America’s founding. While its results did reflect a generational divide—baby boomers were much friendlier to the Founding than Gen Z—73 percent of the younger generation still agreed that “the founders deserve respect…for how they set up the United States.” And 74 percent of Gen Z respondents agreed that “studying the political principles of the founding fathers can help inform our decisions today.”

Support for Founding principles was also impressively robust across party lines: 92 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats said that it was “more important than ever to teach all kids the history of the founding fathers.”

But though the sentiment is generally popular, its specific implementations tend to be rather controversial. In Florida, a recently devised A.P. U.S. History alternative, which casts the Founding and its Enlightenment-influenced classical liberalism in a rosier light, has been characterized by the media as an “anti-woke” reaction and a specifically “conservative” reform. 

The AEI survey also revealed surprisingly broad support for capitalism. Among 5,306 respondents, 82 percent said it was “very” or “somewhat important” to teach about “the benefit of free market capitalism” in high schools. Only 4 percent said that it should not be taught.

The result stands in stark contrast with other recent polling on the popularity of capitalism. For instance, a Gallup survey from last September found that just 54 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of the economic system, down from 61 percent in 2010.

There have been other prominent indications that Americans’ faith in the free market could be slipping. New York City, for instance, elected a self-avowed socialist for mayor, who used his inauguration speech to decry “the frigidity of rugged individualism.” (Washington, D.C., may soon follow in NYC’s footsteps.)

Still, not all of the AEI survey results tell a story of Americans eager to “accentuat[e] positive views of America.” Among parents surveyed in 1998, 50 percent said they would be upset if their children’s teacher “constantly criticized America’s economic and political system”—this year, only 32 percent agreed.

But beneath the malaise, it would seem that Americans are fundamentally committed to the values and freedoms of the Founding. “Much has changed since the late 1990s,” the AEI report reads, but “still, most Americans in 2026 report that they are familiar with our founding documents and endorse long-standing civic ideals such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal opportunity.”