Most such discussion suffer from an inadequate definition of what is meant by "socialism" vs what is meant by "capitalism". The most important aspect to me is ownership / control of the means of production, and I think there are very interesting compromises to be had in between extremes. What I mean: imagine if it was normal for companies to pay out a large part of their earnings to their employees. This does exist, of course, in some of the best companies, but is not widely spread and even when in place, the share of profit going to the employees is too small. Another share could still go to shareholders that "didn't work" for the profit to incentivize investments. Seems like a small change that could have a huge impact on wealth distribution.
The problem in the US, is that historically all flavors of socialism have been painted the same way as communism. So in the end it has been capitalism vs socialism, no room in the middle.<p>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.<p>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.
The real issue IMHO is that we went from finance in service of classical liberalism to classical liberalism in service of finance. It seems like every mega corporation is basically some variation of a financial bank, and whatever core business they claim they have is secondary to the former...<p>So they are not in the business of making things to make money, they are in the business of moving money to make money, with making things as a cover...<p>We need a new word for that, "financialism"...
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”<p>— John Steinbeck, still as relevant as ever
Socialism is only for the super-duper rich, the 0.001%. Too big to fail, trickle down economics and all that.<p>Capitalism for the poor, you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you ain't successful, you aren't working hard enough.
Makes me wonder how many of the complaints about capitalism are really about <i>corruption</i>, and if people would have a more favorable view of it if we didn't have this system of interlocking directorships, revolving public/private appointments, regulatory capture, and backroom handshakes between government and corporations that seems to shut many Americans out of the capitalist wealth-creation engine.
I think part of it is that it can be argued that benefitting from such corruption within the system is itself a capitalistic action and therefore justifiable from within.<p>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)
The US is not really capitalist, it’s an oligarchy - a small number of people like Larry Ellison essentially control everything.<p>It’s always been like that, even going back to the 19th century and the robber barons of the gilded age
Could it be that capitalism implies or causes corruption?
Too Big To Jail, official US attorney general position, never forget:<p>> 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.<p>> 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<p><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/eric-holder-backtracks-remarks-on-too-big-to-jail/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/eric-holder-backt...</a>
I agree with the sentiment, but that's really about welfare, not socialism. You can still have welfare in a state where control of the means of production is in a few, private hands. As I recall some big ideologues of capitalism wanted that, or at least took it for granted that we would have to have it for the system to be stable.
30 years ago this sounded like lunacy, now its becoming apparent it was prophecy:<p>capitalism and artificial intelligence are the same thing
Socialism is when the government does stuff
It's not always clear who controls the means of production. It certainly isn't always the people who formally is supposed to - whether we're talking about a "capitalist" or "socialist" government.
Reality check: the workers never control the means of production. Not even in communist states, not even in China. On paper? Sure, paper is forgiving. But the oligarchy, either by party or by money, does what they want. The only enclaves where the workers own it is in small cooperatives (mostly insignificant).
The caveat for anyone outside of the United States is that what they call "socialism" is really just capitalism with a welfare state.
Which the US has anyway, albeit in a patchier form than other countries, and with welfare handed out more to corporations and "sponsors" than individuals.
The US has the same attributes that most European countries have. Just to a different degree. Socialized healthcare (for some), welfare, free markets (with restrictions), the state heavily involved in steering the economy . It’s all the same just with emphasis on different aspects. The US would be way better off if they accepted that fact and didn’t tell themselves that they are so different from these socialist/communist countries.<p>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.
I don't see how a shared currency (between poor and rich states, with the subsidy flows that implies), a national air-traffic control system and the interstates, amongst many other features, are not "socialism".
The majority of federal government spending is a wealth transfer to old and poor people:<p><a href="https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/" rel="nofollow">https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...</a><p>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.<p>And then there’s the implicit monetary policy of putting asset owners ahead of income earners by debasing the currency.
Funny how subsidies to megacorps and tax exemptions are never "wealth transfer" just daily business.
> The majority of federal government spending is a wealth transfer to old and poor people<p>Sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.<p>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.<p>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.
That’s what some politicians here mean when they say it. The poll seems to indicate pretty negative results for “socialism,” which seems less likely if people were just interpreting it as capitalism+safetynet, right?
The US would be the biggest recipient of socialism right now yet they come from 50 years of propaganda against it; it's so ingrained in their minds that even someone in the most exploited working class would dismiss the idea as "communists want to steal your money1!1!1".
We are so far to the 'right' now, that even getting a salary is socialism because it is taking money from those poor billionaires that could use that money to invest and create more jobs.
I’d like to understand how they defined capitalism vs free enterprise for the poll participants.<p>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.
> 81% viewing free enterprise positively, compared with 54% for capitalism and 39% for socialism<p>> capitalism is much more likely than free enterprise to be associated with unequal distribution of wealth.<p>This is why the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" are largely useless in political debates, and people are mostly talking past each other.<p>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.
Capitalism has a generational problem. Gen Z and Gen Alpha growing up in an age of austerity while wealth inequality grows out of control will have, and arguably is having, profound effects on just about everything
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If that’s really the case, then white males have a lot to answer for, and some soul-searching to do. There is nothing intrinsically non-white about socialism. Plenty of whites in Europe find it perfectly acceptable.
Is this a self-report or what’s your point?
The capitalism vs socialism debate was settled in the 1980s, and so was the value of free enterprise. It is odd that the debate should keep being brought up...<p>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.
People really need to give up the cold war, the failures of "end of history" thinking are directly related to all of the economic problems we have today.<p>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.
> <i>People really need to give up the cold war, the failures of "end of history" thinking are directly related to all of the economic problems we have today.</i><p>That's irrelevant to the point.<p>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.<p>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.<p>> <i>We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures.</i><p>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...<p>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.
China doubled down, what on earth are you talking about? Every major corporation in China has a party member in a position of power to direct what the company does. And many of them have state ownership.<p><a href="https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role-state-ownership-chinas-economy" rel="nofollow">https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role...</a><p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/arc-of-the-chinese-economy/state-ownership-in-china/64E108B734D0819AF683B477AF4BC88D" rel="nofollow">https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/arc-of-the-chinese-...</a>
Which isn't what any socialist would call socialism. But it is what many capitalists would call socialism.
Common ownership of the means of production is what I call socialism.<p>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.<p>Central planning is orthogonal to the whole thing... credit institutions and corporations do a hell of a lot of centralized planning.
State ownership of many companies is not the same as socialism.<p>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.<p>China now has the second largest number of millionaires in USD after the US.
<i>socialism = "social safety net measures", which it isn't but, as mentioned, it seems that many in the US think it is...</i><p>They think "Social Democracy", not pure "Socialism".<p>But the Right will equate one with the other to pretend the left are communists.
The USSR had nothing to do with socialism (it was a feudal dictatorship) and it's debatable whether China is now capitalist.
The 1980s was almost 50 years ago, and history continues to move.<p>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 <i>at all</i>.<p>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.
some of these media outlets manipulate public opinion.<p>majority of the public can't differentiate between commerce & capitalism. nor socialism vs 'free markets'.<p>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.<p>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 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.<p>The reason the Chinese system works the way it does is precisely <i>because</i> the CPC exists.
> 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.<p>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?<p>i can even agree that Xi was voted in by the people but that doesn't change the point.
I don't think the OP or anyone else here or in the study tried the argument that China was a real democracy. We're strictly checking the economy and its system here, and yes the party is definitely tipping it. But then, everywhere the state can tip it, and more often than not it even does tip it - with laws and regulations and subventions and wars and state contracts and and. So I think the argument is, as interventionism goes they're quite the same even when they claim big ass difference. At least until we look into personal freedoms.