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Home » 4 in 10 Americans think socialism would be good for this country

4 in 10 Americans think socialism would be good for this country

The New Neo Posted on by

A recent Gallup poll indicates that 4 in 10 Americans think socialism’s pretty darn good. Here’s Gallup’s short version.

The Gramscian march has borne fruit, because (based on a poll from last year that has age-related data on the same subject), it seems this is an age-dependent phenomenon:

Americans aged 18 to 29 are as positive about socialism (51%) as they are about capitalism (45%). This represents a 12-point decline in young adults’ positive views of capitalism in just the past two years and a marked shift since 2010, when 68% viewed it positively. Meanwhile, young people’s views of socialism have fluctuated somewhat from year to year, but the 51% with a positive view today is the same as in 2010.

Older Americans have been consistently more positive about capitalism than socialism. For those 50 and older, twice as many currently have a positive view of capitalism as of socialism.

That’s probably because older people went to school back when socialism wasn’t praised to the skies, and also because they not only learned more about history and economics and civics, but older people have done more observing of the course of human events.

Here’s the full data, where you can see the Democrat vs. Republican breakdown, which is profound. 70% of Democrats think socialism would be good for the country vs. 13% of Republicans (and who are these mysterious socialist Republicans, by the way?). Also note that the margin of error of the poll is plus or minus 6%, which is quite large.

Then there’s this:

Additionally, while a majority of Democrats view socialism positively, that is not a major change in the eight years Gallup has tracked this metric. The major shift over this time has been the reduced rate of Democrats who now view capitalism positively (47%).

So the majority of Democrats are high on socialism, and this has been going on for at least eight years. It also represents not so much an increase in approval for socialism as an increasing disdain for capitalism.

But ignorance is also part of it, because it’s unclear that those lauding socialism have a clue what it actually is. They seem to be confusing it with “equality”:

Previous Gallup research shows that Americans’ definition of socialism has changed over the years, with nearly one in four now associating the concept with social equality and 17% associating it with the more classical definition of having some degree of government control over the means of production.

Combined with this increase in ignorance is an increase in confidence in one’s state of knowledge. It’s a common combination, I’ve found:

While 51% of U.S. adults say socialism would be a bad thing for the country, 43% believe it would be a good thing. Those results contrast with a 1942 Roper/Fortune survey that found 40% describing socialism as a bad thing, 25% a good thing and 34% not having an opinion.

Now only 6% have no opinion.

Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?

Comments

4 in 10 Americans think socialism would be good for this country — 37 Comments

  1. Those who embrace the various isms of the Left demonstrate their lack of cognitive ability and, then confirm that lack with their willful denial of its obvious structural flaws.

  2. Since socialism is government ownership of the means of production, they could go the government one better and become personal owners of the means of production by buying stock in some of America’s finest companies via SPY, the S&P 500 index fund. Yes, I own some.

  3. Either they don’t know what “socialism” means and/or they think they’re being asked about “social media” and/or they’re concerned they’ll seem “anti-social.” The Dem talking point steno pool is celebrating ignorance. Yaaay! The people have been hoodwinked and bamboozled by false promises we promoted!
    Woo.

  4. I bet opinions of young people would change if there was a shift in the grading process…average all the scores of work done, and everybody in the class gets the same grade. Guess who would think it was a great idea and who would decide it wasn’t worth the work!!!

  5. If I’m reading that last quote correctly, there’s 11% more people who describe socialism as a bad thing than in 1942 when there was a much better publicized example of bad socialism actively engaged in ongoing predations. Maybe it’s not so horrible?

  6. 4 out of ten are smarter than average
    4 out of ten are dumber than average
    which do you think is dominant

  7. Trump should initiate “Venezuela Tours, Inc.”

    Might be an eye-opener for some.

    Would likely help the Venezuelan economy somewhat (i.e., what’s left of it).

    “Special” participants could be eligible for a free one-way ticket….

  8. Yet another illustration of why I don’t believe in the theory of evolution. I believe in the theory of devolution.

  10. This morning I got to spend a tedious half-hour at my work cafe, overhearing a college socialist at the next table explain everything to a not very bright companion.

    At least the College Socialist knew the difference classic liberalism and liberalism devolved into leftism. But for him that was a feature, not a bug.

    CS didn’t buy the idea of a US border because he considered the US to be an illegitimate country which had stolen Texas and the Southwest from Mexico. And so on.

    Of course, when I was his age — somewhat older actually — I was a socialist too. I wondered what I could say to explain my change that might make sense to him.

    Probably not much. For me it came down to life experience and reading history with a little nudge from 9/11.

  12. According to provisional data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), America’s birth rates hit a 32-year low in 2018. The data on more than 99% of America’s birth records indicates there were 3.788 million children born last year, marking the lowest total since 1986.

    The CDC also noted that this is the fourth straight year of declines. That’s because slight gains made by women in their late 30s and early 40s, were more than offset by record-low birth rates for women in their teens and 20s. More ominously, the total fertility rate also hit a record low of 1.728 births per woman — meaning there aren’t enough babies being born to maintain current population levels.

    https://patriotpost.us/articles/63106-a-nihilist-driven-birth-dearth

    And turns out there haven’t been enough since 1972…
    ergo Replacement Immigration white papers at the UN, etc…

    “The birthrate is a barometer of despair,” Myers asserts, explaining that people don’t have children unless they’re optimistic about the future.

    ……….since they’ve been fed a steady diet of nihilism beginning as early as kindergarten. That’s where they begin learning that America is an inherently flawed, hopelessly bigoted nation in need of “fundamental transformation.” Transformation that wholly embraces the nihilistic dogma that men are “toxic,” whites are “privileged,” minorities and women are “victims,” gender is “fluid,” Christians are “bitter clingers,” the rich are “greedy and selfish,” certain speech is “hateful,” and social justice must transcend the Rule of Law.

    More telling, as one moves up the educational ladder, the level of infantilism increases, as students become coddled by “trigger warnings,” attuned to “micro aggressions” and comfortable with safe spaces — replete with Play-Doh, therapy dogs, and coloring books.

    The article leaves out 1000 piece puzzles…

    The New York Times reports. “And while few, if any, studies have examined how large a role climate change plays in people’s childbearing decisions, it loomed large in interviews with more than a dozen people ages 18 to 43.”

    Those interviewees felt “saddled with painful ethical questions that previous generations did not have to confront,” the Times adds.

    we only had nuclear weapons…

    What else is counterproductive? The Left’s ongoing love affair with abortion on demand right up to — and on occasion, beyond — the moment of birth. Since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling in 1973, this nation has endured 60 million abortions.

    Coupled with declining birth rates, that genocidal level of carnage ought to elicit a slew of proposals regarding ways to incentivize child-rearing and the moral responsibility necessary to undertake it properly. Instead, exactly like the EU, America’s Ruling Class has a “better” idea: incentivize a wholesale invasion of the nation by illegal aliens, coupled with it unsupportable levels of legal immigration — and tell Americans it’s all for their own “demographic good.”

    Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?
    https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ageing/replacement-migration.asp

    “Der Feminismus wird dich befreien”
    (von der Existenz vor der Geburt)…

    It’s their idea of the future
    and the hand that rocks the cradle……..

  13. Wasn’t there just a thread here the other day about the unreliability of polling data? 😉

  14. Oh…and Boss…looks like the Socialists made off with the edit button again.

  15. The whole sample size in this Gallup poll is 1024 yielding a margin of error of 4% (95% confidence, or 2 standard deviations). The “form A” (?) results have a MoE of 5%, and the subset for “Democrats only” is 6%.

    It’s interesting that the sample size for the last two groups is only slightly different, so they seem to be rounding to the nearest whole percentage number.
    ____

    I saw this in the news this morning. So 43% of people think socialism would be good thing for the country, and 44% of people think that the government should provide healthcare instead of the free market. Maybe these two groups are about the same group?

    But, 28% of people think that the government should redistribute people’s wealth. That’s not a tiny group, but much smaller than those that would like to see gov. healthcare.

  16. Speaking of the “Gramscian march,” did anyone see the piece in American Thinker today on Pastor Pete Buttijoke’s father? Apparently, Pete’s dad, Prof. Joe, was a huge acolyte of Antonio Gramsci.

    Does anyone do opposition research in the Republican party anymore? I suppose it would be impolite to infer that a grown child would in anyway be influenced by his father.

  17. My conclusion based upon the polling ‘data’ is 40% of the population are dupes and extremely ignorant of history and human nature. That is why the Founders created the 2nd Amendment, because the 1st was not adequate to defend the Constitution. If you are not armed and well trained in their use, you are a part of the problem, because you have surrendered your ability to defend life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You are not prepared to resist those ever amongst us who would who will kill you to impose their totalitarian agenda. Don’t be a sheep, because in reality there are wolves ever ready to consume you.

  18. Speaking of the “Gramscian march,” did anyone see the piece in American Thinker today on Pastor Pete Buttijoke’s father?

    TommyJay: I had run into that tidbit of information elsewhere, but yeah.

    I remember what a big deal it was to call Obama a socialist in 2008 and how Obama even had his name scrubbed from some World Socialist organization he had been active in.

    However, times change. After Obama won, Newsweek declared “We’re All Socialists Now.” Eight years later Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, would likely have won the Democratic nomination if the DNC hadn’t been in the pocket of the Clintons and rigged the game against Sanders.

    So calling out Buttigieg’s father as a Gramscian Marxist is probably a yawn. Geez-Louise, Obama got elected with a Marxist mentor, a Black Power pastor and a top communist terrorist as close political connections.

  19. Apparently the proper pronunciation of Buttigieg is “Butt-edge-edge.” Which makes no sense to me.

    I suspect the original pronunciation was along the lines of “butt-uh-geeg” but that was too easy to ridicule.

  20. “Who are these mysterious socialist Republicans?” I’ve definitely met Republicans who think we could learn a lot from the Nordic countries or who support universal healthcare but are conservative on other issues. And some people definitely think “socialism” just means “strong social safety net,” so that could explain why a few Republicans have a positive view of socialism. Also, some people just vote for Republicans because they’re pro-life but are liberal on economic issues.

  21. Gallup did a poll in Sept. 2018 on the meaning of “socialism” and compared its findings with a 1949 poll asking the same question:

    When asked to explain their understanding of the term “socialism,” 17% of Americans define it as government ownership of the means of production, half the number who defined it this way in 1949 when Gallup first asked about Americans’ views of the term. Americans today are most likely to define socialism as connoting equality for everyone, while others understand the term as meaning the provision of benefits and social services, a modified form of communism, or a conception of socialism as people being social and getting along with one another. About a quarter of Americans were not able to give an answer.

    What Is Your Understanding of the Term “Socialism”? [the first percentage given for each item is for 2018, the second for 1949]

    Equality – equal standing for everybody, all equal in rights, equal in distribution — 23, 12
    Government ownership or control, government ownership of utilities, everything controlled by the government, state control of business — 17, 34
    Benefits and services – social services free, medicine for all — 10, 2
    Modified communism, communism — 6, 6
    Talking to people, being social, social media, getting along with people — 6, —
    Restriction of freedom – people told what to do — 3, 1
    Liberal government – reform government, liberalism in politics — 2, 1
    Cooperative plan — 1, 1
    Derogatory opinions (non-specific) — 6, 2
    Other — 8, 7
    No opinion — 23, 36

  22. The way to approach those who favor socialism is to ask them where the government gets its money. Too many people don’t understand that the government has no money. That the money the government spends comes out of our pockets. Ask them if they get their money’s worth from the government? Ask them what the Constitution says is the Federal government’s primary duty? Ask them why the government is spending their money on providing benefits to illegal immigrants or people who refuse to work?

    When a socialist says he wants to tax rich people more to get money to provide universal healthcare, you have to ask the socialist where the cutoff is between rich and poor. It’s demonstrable that universal healthcare can’t be afforded without taking huge taxes from everyone – rich and poor. Ask them if the VA is doing a good job? Why would we want to have everyone healthcare from a poorly run outfit like the VA?

    Socialism looks good on paper, but it always fails to take into account human behavior and the fact that the government does not create wealth or have any money except what it takes from the citizens. Those who work harder, save, invest, and take responsibility for their own welfare thrive under capitalism and wealth increases. But under socialism all citizens, except the elite in government, lose the incentive to work harder, save, invest, and take responsibility for themselves. The economy suffers, wealth creation stagnates or declines, and eventually all the regular citizens do as well. It should be self evident to anyone with eyes to read about all the failures of socialism. Apparently not.

  23. The way to approach those who favor socialism is to ask them where the government gets its money. Too many people don’t understand that the government has no money.

    J.J.: Ain’t that the truth!

    Many people seem to believe there is an endless amount of money available flowing out of a giant magic fountain, but the rich, selfishly, want to keep it all to themselves, so the government’s job is to redirect the fountain so everyone gets some.

    I haven’t followed Venezuela closely but I do remember how promising Chavism appeared at the beginning. It seemed something wonderful was happening for the poor. Sean Penn was excited!

    But after the government ran out of rich people and rich corporations to exploit, the honeymoon was over. The rich people and rich corporations were gone and none were coming back.

    The socialists ran out of other people’s money, as M. Thatcher once remarked. Or “Bad luck,” as R. Heinlein wrote earlier.

  25. Cross-posting from GoT.
    Dave on May 21, 2019 at 5:46 pm at 5:46 pm said:
    https://humanevents.com/2019/05/21/woke-mafia-in-panic-as-game-of-thrones-slays-queen-social-justice-warrior/

    Daenerys’ elitist and narrow view of social morality is all that matters to her and makes her character the perfect stand-in for the terminally woke. Like so many socialists before her, Daenerys became a tyrant the moment she came into power. And yes, that is real socialism.

  26. Just ask anyone professing favorable views of socialism to identify any modern economy that it’s government describes as socialist. My favorite is the claim of Denmark being socialist, when those in the business of classifying national economies consider Denmark’s more free than ours, including less regulation of private business.

  27. The Republic is still dead, Neo. That’s not going to change any time soon.

  28. When I was in high school- I graduated in 1971- economics was demoted from being a required course to being removed entirely from the curriculum. It was replaced by a course called Minority Groups, which was a sort of catch-all victim studies course. That pretty well typifies the reason we are where we are today.

  29. had his name scrubbed from some World Socialist organization he had been active in.

    He belonged to Michael Harrington’s outfit, which was descended from the old Socialist Party of America but favored working within the Democratic Party. Back in the day, Bernie Sanders was dismissive of them.

  30. huxley,

    I had heard previously that Pastor Pete’s father was a Marxist prof., and as I recall, I did yawn a bit. At least with Bill Ayers there was some objective reality that he was trying to destroy with his org’s bomb planting and he was partially honest about it.

    But Gramscians think they can twist social structures so as to make people believe anything they wish. (There is evidence that this is at least partly true.) Also that some a priori notion of “human nature” statistically speaking, doesn’t exist. That last one is perhaps the most scary to me.

    I just saw that Gramsci coined the label “Fordism” after Henry Ford’s contribution to the industrial revolution and his $5/day “living wage.” Sure, because Henry was such a left-winger! That’s a fascinating if misunderstood (IMHO) topic.

    I suspect that huxley is correct that all this has nearly zero political impact now. On the other hand, if Trump the GOP merely trumpet the economy in generic terms, I fear they will lose.
    _____

    The second most scary thing to me is when I hear someone in Congress claim that program costs don’t matter much because the gov. can just print money. That why I carry 50 trillion dollars in my wallet, if the topic comes up in conversation. A $50T Zimbabwe dollar bill, that is.

  32. IQ rates dropping in developed countries…

    [follow the chain and thank feminism… if SAT is pushing to keep chinese and white out, and jews score higher too… the what does it mean below replacement births in the population and importing others who are not similar?]

    Evan Horowitz IQ rates are dropping in many developed countries and that doesn’t bode well for humanity

    An intelligence crisis could undermine our problem-solving capacities and dim the prospects of the global economy.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576

    People are getting dumber. That’s not a judgment; it’s a global fact. In a host of leading nations, IQ scores have started to decline.

    Though there are legitimate questions about the relationship between IQ and intelligence, and broad recognition that success depends as much on other virtues like grit, IQ tests in use throughout the world today really do seem to capture something meaningful and durable. Decades of research have shown that individual IQ scores predict things such as educational achievement and longevity. More broadly, the average IQ score of a country is linked to economic growth and scientific innovation.

    These days, however, Flynn himself concedes that “the IQ gains of the 20th century have faltered.” A range of studies using a variety of well-established IQ tests and metrics have found declining scores across Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia.

    Beginning around the turn of the 21st century, many of the most economically advanced nations began experiencing some kind of decline in IQ.

    One potential explanation was quasi-eugenic. As in the movie “Idiocracy,” it was suggested that average intelligence is being pulled down because lower-IQ families are having more children (“dysgenic fertility” is the technical term). Alternatively, widening immigration might be bringing less-intelligent newcomers to societies with otherwise higher IQs.

    However, a 2018 study of Norway has punctured these theories by showing that IQs are dropping not just across societies but within families. In other words, the issue is not that educated Norwegians are increasingly outnumbered by lower-IQ immigrants or the children of less-educated citizens. Even children born to high-IQ parents are slipping down the IQ ladder.

    [you do realize they play games with who is who in this to game the outcomes… as less negative]

  33. Euro-style “socialized medicine” is, for many working people without employee health benefits, better than the current US mess.

    Those who, like me, hate socialism, need to have the Reps prepare a better, more market oriented plan. The Reps with years of anti-Obamacare rhetoric STILL do not have an agreed to plan to promote.

    Trump is promising one, but it was much easier to accept the Heritage list of great judges than any one Heritage / AEI / Cato (Lib, not Rep) / FEE / Acton Inst. / Chamber of Commerce (RINOs?) plan to reform health care. Too many already in health care get too much profit out of the mess right now.

    Good market based health care would hugely reduce the attraction of “socialism”, and no amount of Venezuela scare tactics against socialism will have much impact (not none, but not much).

    The other commie/ socialist idea that is pretty good, among the many terrible ideas, is the idea of everybody having a job. Under the commies, it was illegal to be without a job. Yes, that’s a huge lack of freedom, but it’s also a huge increase in security. And those folks most afraid of having no jobs usually want more security than want more freedom.

    I support a somewhat socialistic Job Guarantee plan — a voluntary “National Service” for all those willing to work. And the gov’t should assign such folk jobs to do, which might include some school work study to improve their reading and writing and ability to do arithmetic.

    “If a man is not socialist when under 25, he has no heart; if he remains when over 40 he has no brains.” (perhaps Anselme Batbie, in French, misquoting Burke). Good thing such ninnies are having few kids, so America is aging.

  34. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1131169050921455616.html

    The folks giving Trump soaring approval numbers on the economy need to understand: all of the Democrat candidates for 2020 will kill this economy stone-dead, not just because they’re incompetent, but because their power depends on high unemployment and stagnant wages.
    The implications of Trump’s economy for socialism are absolutely terrifying. Full employment? A tight labor market producing competition for workers and wage increases? Who needs socialism when they have THAT?

    Doc Zero.
    RTWT

  35. IQ is meaningless without the standardization formula and adjustment. It matters whether someone is in the top 98% of the human race in X, Y, and Z, ala Mensa. It doesn’t matter what their IQ number is.

  36. I wouldn’t go so far as to mention K Dunning effect on this venue, but it does sound reminiscent of that effect. People have mentioned IQ number and so forth, so many times, that the mass majority of people seem to think a higher IQ number automatically means the test has them pegged at a better rating than previous IQ numbers that were lower.

    It is just basic statistics and the bell curve.

  37. Various polls on the popularity of this program or that program show a huge change when those being polled find out the cost of the free stuff they are being offered. It goes from, “Sharing is great!” to “You want me to pay WHAT?” Put it this way, in the UK your dead-center wage earner will pay about 25% income tax, not including NHS tax (this from memory). That’s huge by American standards. But they get more free stuff. 🙂

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