If only they would embrace democracy and vote then their feelings might be translated into change.
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Having been kicking around for the last 50 years, usually on the lower-to-lowest rungs of any kind of personal advancement ladder, I’ve come to distrust people more than I distrust any particular system. The systems are the tools used by certain people. And these days, those people, I don’t trust.
ETA give a self-serving asshole any kind of power no matter what the system is and that asshole will self serve.
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Free market capitalism was doomed the moment Madison Avenue figured out how to help the tobacco industry murder its own customers for profit. It’s all been downhill from there. Now the whole notion of ‘informed consumers making rational decisions in a free marketplace’ is nothing but a cruel joke. People are intentionally made uninformed and irrational and most markets no longer even pretend to serve the best interests of society. Marx and Engels were right, the only thing that can preserve whatever good is left in this perverted capitalist structure is an aggressive socialist agenda.
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There really is no such thing as a pure capitalist anyway. Capitalism only exists in a pure form with a regulatory structure behind it to prevent monopolistic tendencies which restrict markets.
Those who claim such a title are really oligarchists. People who don’t want free markets, only markets they can control or own a piece of. Monopolistic intent more important than free markets. Or worse to take something public and make a profit from it, at the public’s expense.
Privatization has never benefited the public, but always benefits a politically connected crony. People don’t really oppose universal health care because it is somehow immoral, wrong, or even too expensive. They do because it means a profit center cash cow is taken away from a select group of people and companies.
The only truly “Non-socialistic” governments are ones in developing countries. Where the resources are so thin and corruption so common that the government is incapable of providing effective services to the people paying into it. Every developed country has some socialist policies or programs because simply, that is what the people paying into the system want.
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Free market capitalism never existed. Professed capitalists don’t want free markets, they want markets they own, control or have a controlling piece of.
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As a Canadian, I agree with everybody above who is pointing out the silliness of the false dichotomy. Capitalism is a good thing - UNLESS you let it run certain services unchecked, like health care, for instance. It blows me away to hear right-leaning U.S. citizens argue that ‘the free market’ is always going to work in the best interests of the people - ya, right! There are certain things that government (aka “We The People”) MUST regulate, and other things it should stay out of! I always think back to a meeting I had with my banker back when the 2008 crisis was in full swing. He assured me that while there would be fallout that would affect us in Canada, overall: “We’re going to be okay. We (the banks) are more REGULATED here in Canada.”
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Some of us geezers are pretty down on Capitalism.
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No, it’s true! It definitely works in the best interests of the people that make up the cabals, the cartels, and those that have heavy machines and weapons.
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But, but, that would require knowing the meanings of the words! Or worse, thinking!
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In discussions about corporations, and their sway, I always remind myself the biggest 5 in America are Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Facebook, in that order. And these are highly supported and funded by a lot of consumers who might not like corporate interests. Just sayin’.
Oh, capitalists are all about socialism. They 
them some socialised losses, and to socialise costs, to give two prominent examples.
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So, Anarcho-Communism then?
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And for right-wing media, it’s even worse than that: “socialism” = “Venezuela.” (Or, for some of the more confused assholes, “Puerto Rico.”)
In other words, it works in the best interests of the (only) people (that matter)! (Actually, even that’s not entirely true - there are self-destructive tendencies in the free market that, unregulated, ultimately don’t do those people any favors either.)
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Not that the Canadian banks weren’t crying to be able to do the same things as the US before 2008.
Young Americans should distrust socialism too; in the sense of keeping an eye on it to make sure that it’s delivering. Never trust any system run by humans or their proxies.
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It sounds as if the survey was not much more sophisticated than “Capitalism/socialism: circle one.”
Other surveys I’ve seen, that actually describe features of European-style socialism (health care being an obvious example), have found that even many Republican-leaning folk are in favour of socialism. They’ve just never been taught what it means.
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This, exactly. The economic model is not really in question. We are already socialist in certain areas, such as social security, medicare/Medicaid, public schools, even public roads. I am far more concerned about polls showing young people are much less committed to democracy, although some of that may boil down to miseducation, and seeing this as democracy=capitalism, which is demonstrably untrue. Unfortunately, there is a portion of this related to the exact same reason the alt right is antidemocratic. Democracy requires listening to the other side. Not something terribly fashionable right now.
Heaven forefend!
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Dennis wasn’t wrong, he was just an anachronism.
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Pretty sure markets are ontologically prior to humanity, let alone to capitalism. Markets are simply domains of exchange, and they come in lots of flavors, including in non-human species, and in all economic systems.
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