Socialism is apparently a lot more popular, or at least less unpopular, than most of us thought:
Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.
Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.
This poll probably reflects transient feelings about the economy and the global disaster that American capitalism got us into. Steve Benen suggests that the use of “socialist” as an anti-Obama attack might be rebounding in an unexpected way: to the extent Obama and his economic policies are popular, “socialism” may be getting its biggest boost since Castro. The results also indicate that many Americans don’t know what socialism is (nor, in all likelihood, capitalism). Which is part of the risk of using demagogic rhetoric that references events from mid-20th century history, increasingly removed from most people’s experience or basic civics knowledge.
On another level, obviously Americans are reconsidering the cult of markets and deregulation that has occupied the center of U.S. politics since Reagan. For instance, this recent Charles Krauthammer column tries to gin up outrage calling attention to Obama’s “real agenda”: “Obama is a leveler. He has come to narrow the divide between rich and poor. For him the ultimate social value is fairness. Imposing it upon the American social order is his mission.”
The column has its distortions, but on the whole – unlike the “socialism” charge – it’s pretty accurate. But it’s no more effective as an attack because to most ears, the idea of the government working for “fairness” sounds pretty good right now.
April 10, 2009 at 11:04 am
Can we just get on with it? Just give me my free crappy little flat with double steel doors, hallways that are pitch black at night because people steal the light bulbs, parking lots where every car has no wiper blades or antennas because if you don’t lock them up they get stolen, free health care that sucks where I get to bring my own blankets, sheets, bandages etc. for my surgery, meager salaries that cause me to have to work 6 to 7 days a week at three different jobs and a place where a good night out constitutes my wife and I splitting a Big Mac and a hot apple pie.
Let’s go. Let’s just make it happen America. You want it? Then quit talking about it and march on Washington and demand it.
April 11, 2009 at 12:37 pm
This little piece points out the reality of an often trumpeted ‘problem.’ Holy Capitalism has dirty hands, and feet. If only the subject could be discussed without alarm bells and sirens–
Can a political system adapt to reality without causing panic reactions in so many places? Or is the ‘panic’ just politics as usual?