Once again, the American working class wants socialism, but don't understand it.
They love socialism, they hate the word "socialism".
Truly the dumbest population in the West.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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Socialism is unpopular because the average American has zero understanding of what socialism is, and the capitalists continue to gaslight us.
Yea, but you can yell "Gold Standard" and make MAGA wet. Its weird ... they want something that they cant explain or comprehend ... and something their politicians will never give them.
We already have many socialist systems in the US. People like to just simplify it by saying we just have a capitalist system, we don't. Things like fire/police departments, social security, public libraries, water utility, and roads are socialist. Capitalism can help innovate in some cases, but socialism is necessary to uphold necessities that benefit the public.
Socialism was never about government services. It was about the working class owning the means of production. Those things are only socialisim in so far as they are services that aren't about making a specific guy very rich.
it’s the best propaganda campaign that’s ever survived the test of decades. cold war really warped some shit.
Most socialist policies are popular. The word "socialism" is unpopular.
This right here is the correct answer. The cold war propaganda against the Soviet Union has poisoned the general american view of the words socialism and communism. However, every single socialist policy the United States has is insanely popular with the general public.
We've done capitalism my whole life and capitalism has shafted me my whole life. It's time to try something else.
The thing is revolution hardly ever works. Step one, make capitalism better. It used to be better, it has gotten worse. You can thank Jack Welsh for that.
Once we're no longer playing find the glitch to improve the stock price and we start building value things will improve. Then we can keep on fucking improving until shit is good.
Jack Welch did not singlehandedly ruin capitalism. He was a symptom of the problems capitalism is designed to create.
I agree it wasn't singlehanded, but he does seem to have opened the floodgates somewhat. I'm not super pro capitalist either fwiw. I'm down with a system that is functionally successful. With appropriate controls capitalism does seem to be a functional and successful system. However the controls are not being used, they're not being updated to reflect modernity and benefitting workers is not incentivised.
Tearing everything down isn't necessarily the solution to that. First off we need a system that works and then we need a pathway to that system. We also need it to be implemented and in a way that doesn't result in millions worse off or suffering worse than they are.
I'm all up for AI replacing makework jobs (or just getting rid of them). What do we do with the people who are out of work? UBI is probably a start, but who or what in any major country is pushing for this and is in a position to implement it?
As an example raising the employers national insurance contribution in the UK brings out cries of "oh this is unfair on companies" for companies that are making billions in profit, giving money away will have some people in fits (people this would directly benefit).
Quality of life focused improvements would be nice. I don't think I've any solutions, maybe salary sacrifice socialism - government competition for some things where they can offer efficiencies or benefits. Government offer me a package, I can pay xyz extra out of my wages and there's a government run hello fresh or mobile network or broadband supplier or mortgage scheme or house repair scheme. I'm free to source my own or to use the government one. It sets a baseline and ot can run on very fine margins. It's probably full of flaws but it's the best I've got.
Not that I'm advocating for revolution, or that I'm even wholly anti-capitalist, but revolutions are how every successful nation came to be.
It's not that I don't disagree, but taking a capitalist first approach has led us to neo-liberalism, the current status quo. We've capitulated too much to the rich and that has cost us dearly. There isn't any easy way to balance the scales and that's why capitalism is under fire imo.
In terms of successful economic systems I feel they've gotten there by evolution rather than revolution - but I'll also happily admit I'm no economist.
On the other points I think we're there or thereabouts on the same page. There's a great behind the bastards series on Jack Welch Part 1 and part 2
It was pretty revelatory for me as to why everything feels like it's going down the pan. I'm not a "the past was better" type in general - but in this specific instance I definitely am. Feels like the social contract isn't being held up by both sides. The reason the US got so good at stuff was investment in people, now it's mostly a quick grift and memories are short. People are genuinely convinced this is the way it's always been - I was the same until I listened to those episodes.
Hard to see a way back, CEOs are judged on stock price and will get turfed if they try and do the things they need to be doing to make this better (not defending CEOs here - pointing out there's no incentive for change).
I could rant and it's getting late, but what's the real tangible feasible pathway we start working towards?
I would be curious to know how those polled would define capitalism and socialism. Even ignoring the ones that would boil down to cartoonishly good and evil, I would assume that there is a huge disconnect in what each side thinks those terms mean.
I suspect that if you had asked the same people how they felt about policies and priorities without explaining which are capitalist and which are socialist, and included a broad spectrum of ideas ranging from one extreme to the other, you'd see a very different picture emerge.
I'll be very honest. I'm extremely active in politics and been so for around 2 decades. My family navigated the political spectrum right and are now pretty progressive-left by US calibration. By European I'm most closely aligned with Social Democrats and the Nordic Model.
Where I'm being honest is that I don't think socialism or Democratic socialism is well defined, and I don't think even the left does a good job conveying consistency on this. It certainly doesn't help that there are far-right astroturfers trying to wedge-drive the issue and complicate it.
For instance, if Bernie Sanders pitched himself as a Social Democrat as opposed to a Democratic Socialist, which is precisely what his policy proposals are in reality, then that would be SO much easier to convey to the less informed, apathetic voters of this country.
That is, a truly mixed economy with strongly regulated markets in favor of the consumer, environment, and promoting small-business competition while curving corporate conglomerates too big to fail. One where collective bargaining / unions are strong; where Democracy is decoupled and inoculated from private money with strong campaign finance and election laws. Where select industries like healthcare are nationalized in the hands of the people via Democratic institutions, but there is still some market capitalism and profit to be had to assume risk and investment. Where the rich are taxed heavily and social safety nets strong for those to get back on their feet.
It doesn't help that big D Dems work against this at every turn...
but there is still some market capitalism and profit to be had to assume risk and investment
When socialism assumes the risk, it's because that product serves s need in a society. It would seem outside of that (legitimate need), it's a want that drives mindless and destructive consumerism, from my perspective. I can't think of any product or service outside that scope, but I'm listening.
Hard to know if pc or smart phone proliferation or widespread internet access as an example would've ever occurred in that alternative universe, and who is the arbiter of determining what is such a need versus luxury?
At the same time will one argue these aren't needs, but mass communication and aggregation of all human knowledge at our fingertips is certainly the next step from the Gutenberg Press. Liberation of communication and knowledge to masses certainly is pursuant to a need in my mind, yeah?
Such things weren't necessarily known needs until they manifested through innovation in the first place, right?
But should we all simply revert back to Hunter-gatherering aborigines with the lowest impact possible?
I guess in my mind we all have musical instruments or video games our toys be it dirt bikes, etc., which are certainly luxuries of the modern era. The constraints should of course be limited by whether we can (a) take care of the poorest amongst us, (b) be the best stewards of our environment as we can, and (c) ensure justice and equality is applied to all.
So maybe we get phones and games and musical instruments; but just lower the ceiling a bit as other nations with the highest life satisfaction in the world have shown can be done. That's the other nice thing about mirroring these models; they're actually tangible and proven to work at a nation-state scale.
Might certain inventions or discoveries become so positively consequential to society they become nationalized and in the public domain? Take starlink for example, or 5G cellular that gives rural and city access alike to communication and knowledge and therefore potential and opportunity.
I'm not going to argue against any of that. The least wealthy should have access to sports, theatre, symphony, art exhibition, both as participants and spectators, once basic needs are met. Clothing even. The same factories producing the most expensive goods produce the least expensive, and those factory workers and society can benefit from it as much as the designer slapping a label, ostentatious or subtle, and fire exits can be unblocked. If needs on the lowest level of Maslow's heirarcy of needs remain unmet, that's the starting point, then onward and upward. People in Iran and California should absolutely have clean drinking water, unpolluted earth for food production. Tuna and sea turtles deserve a clean, cool enough to survive habitat. Air should be breathable. The world is abundant enough to meet every need; but not every greed.
Sounds good to me! I think people get nervous when they hear only "needs" and not necessarily wants or desires. If I understand you correctly, needs and wants can both be fulfilled — within reason, of course. No billionaires for starters.
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The concept of socialism is not actually hard to define, but it is extremely broad and as a term can describe a lot of distinct but highly related ideas which can make it easy to both misrepresent and misunderstand. One of the defining characteristics of capitalism is that ownership of businesses is determined purely by holding transferrable title which entitle the bearer to a certain proportion of the profits of the business. Socialism on the other hand can describe
- An equity model of any particular business where ownership of the business is determined specifically by a particular kind of relationship to the business (think of cooperative businesses, fan-owned sports teams, or even state-owned enterprise)
- An economic system that is primarily comprised of such institutions
- Any normative philosophy that proposes that certain problems associated with capitalism could be resolved by building some kind of socialist economy
Yeah exactly, tell me which policy will give me free healthcare and a livable wage, then we’ll see which policy wins
Theory: capitalism, socialism, communism, and many other terms have had their meanings permanently obfuscated and made fluid, and biases colored so heavily that any survey or poll done on this topic is utterly and completely meaningless.
"Socialism is still unpopular..."
Cool cool cool, so just show me an overlay of how these audiences define "socialism", without any hints given.
And hey data analyst... Don't be sneaky and aggregate the overtly racist answers into the "closest" group to mask how ugly they are... just have a dedicated group so we can understand the true % that basically said socialism is "free stuff for minorities" - but likely in a lot more unnecessary and incorrect words a la Miss South Carolina's, "and as such, in the case of being US Americans and, as such, in the Iraq, and such as."
Neither capitalism nor socialism are a universally applicable perfect solution. They both have noble goals on paper, and horrible failings in practice. Balancing the two, using elements of both, within limits, with regulation, with moderation, is the only approach that makes sense to me given what we know about both approaches. Like any balancing act, staying on top of the balance takes continuous effort and will never remain stable, sometimes you need to push in one direction, sometimes the other, sometimes you overcorrect. We overcorrected way too far towards capitalism during and after the cold war, and now we're falling and I don't think we're going to be able to catch ourselves. But we'll still have to get up after the fall and try again. I don't know if there's a better "third way" but if there is, I'm confident the path to it will be found somewhere in between the two, not at the extremes.
Dems need to lay it on thick about how social policies are a good thing-- much better than filling rich asshole's pockets-- and that the Cons have been fueling the hatred and twisting the definition of the words
"Unpopular" for registered voters and we all know that the "median voter" is batshit insane
You'd probably have to dig deeper on what people think about both of these things to actually learn more. Obviously capitalism completely unchained very few would support. Same goes for the most extreme possible take on socialism.