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.
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.
Is mamdami really a socialist or just wants to tax oligarchs and fund buses? I swear american propaganda is shifting so hard to the right everything left of technofeudal kukuxklan hellscape is deemed as socialist
He’s a part of the DSA
That’s misleading and deliberately misses the commenter’s point. The DSA explicitly rejects authoritarian models of socialism (USSR, DPRK, etc).
The red-scare-fueled conflation of democratic socialism with basically Stalinism is largely what drives the general disfavorability of “socialism” in these sorts of opinion polls.
It’s not like people were asked, “Do you favor ordinary people having a real voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and society? Do you favor a higher minimum wage, universal health care (Medicare for All), strengthening labor unions, and increasing the power of working people while weakening the power of corporations?”
People broadly support those things, but would very likely hesitate to call that democratic socialism (which, spoiler: those are the DSA’s core tenets).
It’s like when people say they hate obamacare but they love the ACA. They don’t know what they’re talking about, but they have a well worn heuristic of “what does my in-group say?”
Or it’s like that spongebob meme with patrick and the wallet
“So you want workers to be treated with respect” : “Yep”
“And they should be paid a fair wage for their work”: “Sounds good to me.”
“And vital services like health care should be provided to everyone” : “Of course”
“So you’ll vote for the left wing candidate” : “No, I don’t like left wing policies”
It’s not like people were asked, “Do you favor ordinary people having a real voice in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and society? Do you favor a higher minimum wage, universal health care (Medicare for All), strengthening labor unions, and increasing the power of working people while weakening the power of corporations?”
Those are not socialist policies, I’d say they’re more social democratic than socialist.
Uh weren’t they considered communist? (Which is still a misrepresentation of what communism is)
My point was hes a part of the DSA so he self identifies as socialist.
When I think socialist countries I think of Nordic countries not the friggin USSR.
The Nordic countries aren’t socialist they are capitalist countries with strong welfare states.
Socialism is the democratic ownership of the means of production, the nordics are still very much capitalist.
But what are his socialist policies?
Are free busses and free childcare not considered socialist?
The country I live in is not socialist and we have those things. We also have limited free healthcare.
So you think capitalism is the reason you have those things?
I don’t understand how Americans use the Labels “capitalism” and “socialism” especially how americans seem to use these terms as well defined and opposed systems of governance. Weren’t these supposed to be economic systems? Are they as hard edged as american propaganda makes us believe? Is it all buzzwords?
Is taxing the rich “socialist?” is putting a billionaire oligarch in jail for a crime “socialist?” Is making politicians accountable for their crimes “socialist?” the answer is yes for what I’ve seen of American propaganda across the aisle. Normal people would call that “bare minimum governance”
Economic equality is part of socialism. Which is something welfare, free healthcare, free childcare, free education, etc all help with making everyone equal.
The entire system of economic governance doesn’t have to be socialist for socialism to be part of it. We have socialist programs in the US, too. But we are still economically driven by capitalism and private ownership.
But there are a lot of old dumb bastards that don’t understand what socialism actually means and just equate it to enemies of the state (China, Russia, NK, etc).
He’s not he doesn’t support workers control of the means of production and oppose bourgeois control of the means of production and is thus not socialist no matter what others tell you.
His platform isn’t socialist, nobody but him knows what his actual convictions are. I think he’s a pragmatist, and knows that saying “I’m going to abolish private property day 1 and liberate the working class from their capitalist masters” is more likely to get him assassinated than spark a proletarian revolution. I personally believe him when he says he’s a Democratic Socialist, it’s just that he favors reform and is focusing on what’s doable in the short term. The DSA has committed to what they call the “party surrogate” strategy, of which Zohran’s campaign was a part. It means they intend to run insurgent campaigns on the Democratic ballot line while acting independently. With enough primary wins they can operate as a socialist faction within the Democratic party, which could theoretically split from the party and go truly independent after reaching a critical mass of support.
Here is a link that explains it more in-depth.
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“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.”
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…
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
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 © 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
