Majority of young Americans distrust capitalism, embrace socialism

How’s that again? You’ve had a Republican governor for awhile now, one who demonizes the best defense workers have against the greedy rich class–unions-- and who also held up the state budget, and thereby increased the suffering of the poor for what was it, two years? You can’t fairly lay all of your state’s problems at the feet of democrats.

11 Likes

The usual. There are no error bounds shown on the graph. Depending on the sample size, sampling methods, spread of results, etc and assuming a 95% CI, the support for Capitalism in 2018 might be 47% ±5% which would indicate a definite drop of support since 2016, or it might be 47% ±10% in which case the indicated drop could be spurious. A full y-axis would better indicate that while the drop in support for capitalism appears to be real, lets not call it a death-spiral just yet.

1 Like

Probably best to just say “we are uncertain as to the accuracy of the figures.” :slight_smile:

You know, you could just check the link. I know that it only explicitly mentions the last data point, but 95% confidence intervals of +/-3% are pretty much standard in polling. If you go much larger, it would be useless for anything where polling is needed.

SURVEY METHODS
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 30-Aug. 5, 2018, on the Gallup U.S. Poll, with a random sample of 1,505 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

3 Likes

Not to be ignored is that, whenever Obama and Clinton advanced what might be called “global centrist” positions, they got called socialist. Republicans only have themselves to blame for this (small) shift of the Overton window by freaking out about moderate positions; they have made capitalism look insane.

9 Likes

Don’t forget George Orwell.

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.

Why I Write, 1946

11 Likes

Do you know what happens when you pay public workers too little? You get public workers who don’t give a shit, and barely do the jobs they’re hired to do. Also, I might add, those potholes won’t fill themselves, that trash doesn’t pick itself up, your kids can’t teach themselves, that fire isn’t putting itself out, that burgler isn’t arresting himself, and that lake water isn’t cleaning itself or putting itself into pipes. Do you like having all these things taken care of appropriately at the cost of a small percentage of your paycheck, or do you want to live in a crumbling hellhole and have that pittance back in your pocket? Those public workers are supporting your lifestyle.

23 Likes

In colloquial American English, as a noun, it means a conference or gathering; it implies a meeting that is ceremonial, ritual, traditional or otherwise socially significant. e.g. “The Nanticoke Indians held their annual pow wow at Millsboro yesterday”.

As a verb, it means to hold or participate in such a conference. e.g. “The US President pow-wowed with prominent racists in England today.”

Etymologically, the word derives from one of the Algonquian languages of the North Atlantic coast of the United States. Many Native American communities (including some that aren’t strongly linguistically or culturally related to the Algonquins) hold formal pow wows to celebrate and preserve their cultural heritage, and/or to earn money from tourism.

7 Likes

The Democrats have been a social liberal party since the 1930s, which is the right leaning side of the global centre while social democracy is the left leaning side. Social democrats have also been part of the Democrats for the last 90 years but they only get listened to when there is a threat that the public are leaning towards more socialist views.

9 Likes

Capitalism works. Unfortunately, government is broken and can’t keep pace because of bureaucracy and corruption. Although as noted in some comments above, a healthy mix of the isms makes sense.

1 Like

“Means of production” seems to be left out of the conversation far too much in popular discussions of capitalism vs. socialism. The term itself is awkward and comes across as rather abstract, but broken down to the on-the-ground meaning is compelling and clear. The people who do the work to actually make a business (project, corporation, company, etc…) work should have both decision making power, and control over the money that a business brings in (and a stake in the value of the things the business is made of) rather than just the people who loan/invest money in a business.

It’s unbelievable how much political leadership has everyone convinced that all money and power going to capital investors and professional managers is somehow “natural” rather than just capture of the legal and political systems. To me, this is the strategy that could cut across from (D) labor-oriented voters and (R) small-business-lovers to create a productive coalition, rather than wallowing in the oversimplified “Should CEOs keep all their money, or be forced to give some of it to poor people?” that we seem to be trapped in.

Elizabeth Warren, apparently, is setting her sights, if not directly on syndicalism, at least in policy grounded in the concept that workers deserve both rewards and power.

9 Likes

Agreed in general, but I’d argue that the post Cold War Democrats have reverted from Social Liberalism to straight Liberalism. As demonstrated by the rightward shift of the Clintonian wing over recent decades.

6 Likes

Uh, by what measure?

Going by CapEx it looks like Exxon is about twice as big as Apple.

Going by assets they are basically the same size.

ETA:

Exxon is bigger by revenue as well.

7 Likes

If you say “means of production”, it is just vague enough that people don’t picture a functionary sent by the Central Committee to seize and collectivize your farm or sewing machine.
I wish they would do a survey of people who “embrace socialism”, and are also able to define it.

It is enlightning to ask a confirmed socialist how he or she ( or whatever) believes they will be living once the revolution happens.

Market value. Don’t know why I wrote ‘size’. Got carried away.

Libertarian-socialists don’t believe in having central committees.

10 Likes

Unfortunately (as I imagine you know) many, many USian voters have been all too thoroughly trained to think that those two words mean “take money away from people who have [supposedly] earned it.”

Redistributing wealth is exactly what most economies need, but it’s a long climb uphill to convince many USians of that.

5 Likes

Whose definition? There are quite a few… I do apologize to you and yours if you were brutalized by authoritarian state-collectivist revolution, but any mode of property ownership has to be protected by a legal system that is subject to slipping into authoritarianism. Socialism - meaning any system of public, collective or communal ownership - is no more likely to go violent and destructive than capitalism. automatically making all workers voting shareholders in the company they work for is far more socialist that wearing a green hat and smoking stogies.

In a way, I agree with you. A lot of people tend to confuse having a robust welfare state with socialism, and completely ignore the “means of production” bit. But that’s because of decades of anti-tax FUD capitalizing (wink) on the red scare to defund social programs.

I agree. As pragmatic a plain a speaker as she is, I imagine she herself avoids hot buzzwords like that, but blurb and headline writers will always push you back into that stained pigeonhole.

6 Likes

Good for them. What do they call the group that makes all the political and economic decisions? I guess that would be “the collective”.

Everyone.

12 Likes