How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
news.gallup.com
news.gallup.com
They're misusing the term, but at least they're reasonably consistent about it. The opponents of "socialism" tend to point to places like the Soviet Union as proof that "socialism" cannot work. And when supporters point to the success of Scandinavian-type policies, opponents insist it cannot work because it's socialism.
We could have had some kind of honest discussion about which social safety net policies are worth having. Instead we're stuck in arguments about dictionaries.
Capitalism and socialism are about ownership of the means of production.
While most economies are mixed. Nations typically associated with "socialism" like Sweden and Denmark are mostly capitalist. Nations like Bolivia and Venezuela are the ones that are actually mostly socialist.
It's entirely possible to have a highly redistributive capitalist country, with a strong social safety net. It's also entirely possible to have a socialist country with extreme wealth inequality and a terrible social safety net. It just depends on how things are structured.
As for healthcare, unfortunately that has been a collateral victim of this. Benefits used to be tied to the "work unit" in a very traditional socialist style (soviet, commune, etc) but this disappeared when socialism was abandoned and now either you can pay or you die.
No, the economy was destroyed at the time of Mao's death and it was the market-oriented reforms that came afterwards that started the economic boom.
HN always manages to produce extra strange posts.
Communism means everyone who opposes Trump.
Freedom means parroting whatever nonsense Trump says today.
Socialism means everyone who rejects the current corporate oligarchs.
But even more contradictorily, to them "freedom" means violently eliminating all freedoms (of press, assembly, protest, personal liberties) that don't align with worshipping the current president.
And whenever countries with social democratic systems, or in general countries with strong socialist influences are presented to the public, the billionaire-pundits scramble to downplay their living standards.
Take this world cup, for example. You have Fox news pundits tripping over themselves to tell the audience that Europeans don't have AC, don't get ice with their drinks, or whatever.
— John Steinbeck, still as relevant as ever
The poor farmers wanted to stop being serfs, but only so that they could own their own land. That wouldn't make them quite millionaires, but they imagined that they'd be comfortably-well-off. (Today, a millionaire is not much more than comfortably-well-off, but in Steinbeck's time it put you in Jay Gatsby territory.)
So the proper socialist revolution never happened. The workers never got control of the means of production. It just passed from an obscenely-wealthy autocrat to a bunch of oligarchs, who promptly made themselves wealthy.
It does seem to be pretty good evidence that the socialist revolution is never coming. Even if it's in everybody's best interest on paper, it's too hard to get them all on the same page. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma: there are just too many reasons for people to conclude that their short-term interest outweighs the global long-term interest.
Steinbeck never said or wrote that, as far as I can tell.
He did write a passage that maybe was paraphrased that way, but let's be clear here, he was talking about Communism, and revolutionary Communism, not socialism:
"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: “After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?” Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picnickers on her property.
I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."
Steinbeck was a communist in the 1930s, he belonged to a communist organization and wrote for a communist publication. He wrote the above passage in the 1960s looking back on that period. To me it seems like he is trying to minimize his participation in revolutionary communism, as one would naturally do in the 1960s. Maybe I'm overly skeptical and he just grew up.
He did not write or say what you quoted him as saying.
Looks like the definition of "proletarian" is a member of "the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live". I did that for some time, retired now. Don't know what about that category of person means they are expected to support communism.
I don't.
If you had suggested the “public” get a share of the profits then you start touching socialism but then I’d also hate the suggestion.
ChatGPT says 75-80% of business wealth in US is in publicly traded companies, so I’m skeptical the term owner is super useful either.
You need to demonstrate this with receipts. Most of what I see are large corporations getting tax breaks regardless of job or wealth creation within an area. The idea that the public is offset by taxes on corporations is quite fucking ridiculous to anyone who pays any attention to what effective rates corporations pay.
The root of the problem is that the labor that most people in the US sell is not in sufficiently high demand to afford them the compensation to be able to afford the lifestyle they expect, since they are competing with the rest of the world willing to do it for less.
The two problems are not mutually exclusive, and certainly unskilled labour is a significant problem for a good fraction of the population; but if this were the only problem, then we wouldn't see the amount of wealth concentration and decoupling of productivity from income that we observe.
The wealth concentration is a combination of government policy rewarding asset owners and automation and communication and transportation technologies increasing competition for labor sellers.
The automation also allows enormous economies of scale such that fewer businesses can do it all, which is also why you see wealth concentration.
I’m encouraged by parts of the poll, especially independents responses. I think a good many Americans perceive benefits to some degree of socialism ( ie healthcare ), but without going overboard.
But it's also not an either-or. I view states as more socialist the less power is concentrated with a few.
And in non-militarized states, that's a lot about how concentrated wealth is.
These days of course, workers’ days are numbered as automation will eventually make them extinct.
Just because we admit to ourselves that it probably won't end well if we keep allowing the powerful to use their power to get ever more power, for us personally it can be profitable to go along with it. Or too risky to go against it.
Capitalism for the poor, you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you ain't successful, you aren't working hard enough.
Pursuing regulatory capture is just one action of many for maximizing shareholder value, to the point that not doing so is arguably a failure of leadership. At least to some. (To be clear, I disagree with this in principle)
It’s always been like that, even going back to the 19th century and the robber barons of the gilded age
This oligarchy is the inevitable conclusion of capitalism, unless there are regulations in place to preserve competition. The last time the US had significant enforcement in this area was the early 80s (AT&T), so of course we have an oligarchy.
As a parlour game for the wealthy to use markets to find the best price for a slab of marble or a Faberge egg, it's fine. As a system for finding the best price for a loaf of bread which doesn't take into account how close to starving someone's family is, it's terrible.
As a system where an insurance company puts a number on a spreadsheet for the risk of a warehouse full of wood burning down and the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system, it's fine. As a system where the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system in an office based on how expensive it is to replace the dead employees, it's terrible. When the employer can't put a sprinkler system in because any competitor which doesn't can undercut prices, it's terrible. [Regulation which says offices must have fire alarms does not fix the general class of this race-to-the-bottom / exploit inhumanely as hard as possible problem].
When people can use contracts to come together to build a rocket engine, it's fine. When the idea is that you would use your perfect knowledge of everything down to whether a workplace has a fire alarm before deciding whether to accept a contract, it's ridiculous. You don't have enough lifetime or cynicism to find all the nooks and crannies people will be trying to cut corners with your life and safety. When the idea is that humans are rational and cannot be manipulated, it's ridiculous. When the practical result of that is that the wealthy can tell the employees that unions are bad, it's terrible. Note that this isn't classical corruption because the wealthy might believe that's true (unions harm the wealthy!), it's a problem of wealthy having lawyers and marketers to spread their message and nannys to free up time for them to learn things, vs others having no spare time or effort or assistance to counter it.
As a system where the person with the best use for a piece of land can buy it and use it, it's fine. As a system where employees have a 2 hour commute because all the homes closer have been bought up by the wealthy who don't even live in their spare homes, and this effect keeps one class of people as 'employees' because they have neither time nor effort nor opportunity to do anything about it, it sucks.
If we all had a magical base quality of life and could "play at capitalism" as a parlour game where the points don't matter the consequences are abstract - you know, like the rich do - then a lot more people would like it.
Consider the situation where 'Capitalism rewards risk' but the only sensible advice for what to do with your money is to invest it in a diversified index fund because anything else is risky. If you do that and stay relatively poor, you aren't taking enough risk to get rich, you idiot, get good. If you take risk and lose, you're an idiot who should have known better and invested in something else "like I did". If you take a risk and win, then you can play off your "lottery win" as you being a more meritorious capitalist. This leads to a situation where the more desperately someone needs money, the less risk they can afford to take to get money, trapping people at the bottom. The less they can afford lawyers to review contracts, the less they can afford to wait and consider their options, the less they can afford to travel for more options, the fewer options they have in terms of borrowing or terms of renting.
As a haves-get-richer, have-nots-get-screwed system, it's bad - at least, unfair, inhumane, eploitative, cruel.
> Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday sought to walk back comments that some financial institutions may be too large to prosecute, telling lawmakers at a lively Capitol Hill hearing that no single bank is above the law.
> In a March appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder testified that big banks’ clout “has an inhibiting impact” on prosecutions. As he explained: I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult to prosecute them
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/eric-holder-backt...
It's certainly the case that the rich want protections that they deny everybody else, in ways that run counter to the dictates of capitalism. But it's not "socialism". It's just really bad capitalism.
First, I see Americans regularly conflating "socialism" to "wealth redistribution" and "capitalism" to "no taxes."
Second, I see many folks conflating high-trust cooperation to "socialism" and low-trust hostility to "capitalism."
Ultimately, capitalism and socialism is about who owns the means of production. While most economies are mixed, the countries we point to as socialism aren't actually socialist. They're just redistributive, high-trust capitalism. Sweden, Denmark, and Germany are predominantly capitalist countries. Bolivia and Venezuela are predominantly socialist countries.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
That’s also an easy sign of socialism. Just not all of society benefits. Not to mention the state and local level stuff via Medicaid and property tax subsidies for old people, too.
And then there’s the implicit monetary policy of putting asset owners ahead of income earners by debasing the currency.
Sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.
Thats just like saying that public schools are a wealth transfer from the working class to students, or that health insurance is a wealth transfer to old and sick people.
It's neither useful nor precise. Things are never an actual "wealth transfer" when both sides consider it worthwhile-- that's just an ordinary trade.
>or that health insurance is a wealth transfer to old and sick people
Both of these are also true statements.
>Things are never an actual "wealth transfer" when both sides consider it worthwhile-- that's just an ordinary trade.
It's not an ordinary trade, it's a forced payment via the government's monopoly on violence, which is why it falls into a wealth transfer. I would consider it (mostly) worthwhile when it's students because they turn into future workers.
However, I would prefer to opt out of social security and old age healthcare tax (Medicare) because I will be getting less into the system than I pay into the system. That is an inevitable future due to demographics.
Note that I am not saying wealth transfers are categorically bad, just wanted to point out the hilarity of a country that can spend $1T+ per year on wealth transfers and still be afraid of "socialism". And it's far more than $1T, because the health insurance mandate to not price health insurance based on health risks is another massive wealth transfer probably worth at least another trillion.
A lot of the inefficiencies in areas like health care comes from the fact that the US does things that they don’t really want to accept that they are doing them.
> capitalism is much more likely than free enterprise to be associated with unequal distribution of wealth.
This is why the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" are largely useless in political debates, and people are mostly talking past each other.
When you look specifically at what Americans like about socialism, it's health care, education, welfare, and equality. I don't think many people want central planning of the entire economy, which is why critics of socialism raising the bogeyman of the USSR are missing the point.
majority of the public can't differentiate between commerce & capitalism. nor socialism vs 'free markets'.
the non-gullible people know it's not just about this vs that - but ultimately who controls what. ideally you want a system where no individual player or a few players can tip the system.
the Chinese system is probably the closest to that - but then the CCP exists :( . a large player that can tip the scales. but for the rest of the businesses - it's dog eat dog - the better ones that survive are suited to serve the population while aligned to the goals of the population for a good part.
The reason the Chinese system works the way it does is precisely because the CPC exists.
forgive me for asking but even if I accept China is a real democracy, how is that meaningfully different from "no individual player or a few players can tip the system". isn't Xi and the other party members capable of doing exactly this?
i can even agree that Xi was voted in by the people but that doesn't change the point.
In the west - you've to be 'blessed' to become an economic player - there's the myth of competition (but someone has to bless that competition) - whereas in the Chinese economy there's no favored party - BYD isn't favored more by the gvt because it's large anymore than the small upstart that's making electric cars.
> isn't Xi and the other party members capable of doing exactly this? - hence I said the CPC can tip the scales once in a while but in terms of free market competition the Chinese economy is more 'free'
No one has done anything for poor people since Jesus of Nazareth, probably.
However, the terms should also be clearly defined in such poll because indeed the average person may have their own understanding, not least in the US. Judging by the comments even people on HN have no understanding of "socialism" and are trying to shoehorn an idealist view of "a better society" into the term, or they cannot accept that "socialism" does not work.
We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures. Especially as people advocate for AI and using it to replace/disempower employees.
That's irrelevant to the point.
The 1980s did settle the capitalism vs. socialism debate. The USSR and, perhaps more consequentially, China effectively abandonned socialism because it failed and acknowledged that capitalism, free enterprise, and the free market was what worked.
The "end of history" is the belief (proved wrong if not naively wrong from the start) that this would lead to everyone being "friends" under a Western-style liberal democracy.
> We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures.
I don't understand what you are getting at unless you consider that socialism = "social safety net measures", which it isn't but, as mentioned, it seems that many in the US think it is...
Reading the comments it does seem that many don't understand the meaning of "socialism" (or seem to think that the passing of time somehow changes things) even on HN so polls to the general public are completely meaningless. But ask people if the prefer to live in North America or Western Europe vs Eastern Europe/China pre-80s and you'll get a much clearer picture of what the real sentiment is... East Germany had to build a wall to keep people IN, after all.
https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/arc-of-the-chinese-...
Public welfare isn't technically part of it, but it's hard to imagine a state where we don't have it if power is at all evenly distributed.
Central planning is orthogonal to the whole thing... credit institutions and corporations do a hell of a lot of centralized planning.
China has state capitalism and private capitalist enterprises, and free enterprise with robust free markets overall. These are the main reforms that allowed it to thrive after the catastrophe of socialism under Mao. Even basic stuff like farmers being allowed to sell surplus freely for profit and at market prices only became allowed in 1978.
China now has the second largest number of millionaires in USD after the US.
> a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
There are state-owned companies in all Western countries, by the way.
I don't think that you are familiar with the history and economy of China.
>But obviously this isn't how China is now and even state-owned companies in China generally operate in a market and can be in competition with private companies and other state-owned companies.
"Compete's in a market" is irrelevant to socialism. Again, basic poli sci, socialism encompasses both free market and captured market. What makes it socialism is government ownership of the means of production, with redistribution to the general populace.
>There are state-owned companies in all Western countries, by the way.
Right, and which western "capitalist" society has state ownerhsip of 70%+ of the "private" companies that make up its economy? Correct, 0. Socialism has never required the state to own all business in a given economy anymore than capitalism has required 0 ownership.
> because socialism has never required COMPLETE ownership by the state
Sure, it's only complete ownership by the workers.
> What makes it socialism is government ownership of the means of production, with redistribution to the general populace.
Well, then China is not socialist. QED. (and again, owenership by the workers, not necessarily thet state)
I would advise you, in good faith and friendship, to visit China one day. It's a free market capitalist dream in day to day life.
They think "Social Democracy", not pure "Socialism".
But the Right will equate one with the other to pretend the left are communists.
I agree with you that socialism, properly understood, ought to mean something much broader than a social safety net. But not everyone sees it this way.
In my experience, a lot of Americans really do equate social security and welfare as socialism. Or even public education, never mind anything remotely resembling universal healthcare. These people believe that taxation is theft and they're vocal about expressing it. This used to be fringe, but it's a major political movement.
Young Americans have grown up in an environment where anything publicly beneficial is painted as "socialist" by one of the major political parties. Many of them have taken the message to heart.
> capitalism vs. socialism
I learned that when an American talks about socialism, they usually mean communism and often the accompanying dictatorships that enable this oppressive system. Meanwhile, the social-democratic countries score high on measures of democracy, rule of law, human rights, regulation contra anti-competitive practices, consumer protection, environment protection, etc.
It is also important to understand what capitalism means. The theory assumes free markets, but that requires an enforcer that breaks up monopolies and upholds rules for competition. Lots of cognitive dissonance there for people calling themselves capitalists while at the same time screaming against intervention, but those rather should call themselves libertarians.
Yes, it's literally the result of decades of CIA Cold War propaganda, often using conservative Christianity and preachers like Billy Graham (who was funded by the CIA) to scare people into believing communism was literally satanic in nature. Most of American pop culture, media culture and even most subcultures from the 1950s onward were funded by the CIA, if not outright psyops. Americans are more controlled than North Koreans and they don't even realize it.
> believing communism was literally satanic in nature.
> Americans are more controlled than North Koreans and they don't even realize it.
Which don't have anything in common with socialist countries.
https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/denmark-tells-...
Lots of social democratic parties are united in the Socialist International.
50 years before the 1980s, during the Great Depression, the narrative was the opposite. The Soviet Union was invincible with a growing economy while every capitalist country on earth had been plunged into a devastating depression. Adopting social programs was the only way capitalism survived that decade at all.
In the 1930s, "socialism" won. In the 1980s, "capitalism" won. Scare quotes because neither was really the thing. Something else is going to win in the 2030s. The story is never over, despite what Francis Fukuyama would have you believe.
capitalism and artificial intelligence are the same thing