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.
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.
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 funny part is that the era commonly referred to as "the golden age of capitalism" (post New Deal, post WWII) in the US is the period of time where it was the most "socialist".
Regardless of your actual views on the systems, as a non-american it's absolutely insane that so many people are incapable of thinking of one positive of a socialist economic system. I wouldn't describe myself as either a socialist or a capatalist, but with just a cursory ponder I can think of several benefits to both. The complete inability for critical thinking is quite saddening, and quite worrying considering america's influence.
That also includes self-described supporters of socialism, who almost always mean something closer to social democracy. They tend to point to places like Scandinavia, who are absolutely capitalist. They just have better social safety nets.
They're misusing the term, but at least they're reasonably consistent about it. The opponents of "socialism" tend to point to places like the Soviet Union as proof that "socialism" cannot work. And when supporters point to the success of Scandinavian-type policies, opponents insist it cannot work because it's socialism.
We could have had some kind of honest discussion about which social safety net policies are worth having. Instead we're stuck in arguments about dictionaries.
What I think is "absolutely insane" is how oblivious of recent history people are. Up until the 1980s half of Europe was socialist, and it is at that time that China started moving away from a socialist economy, too. It was abandoned everywhere.
Not entirely sure what that has to do with what I was saying? Unless you're trying to provide an example of a lack of critical thinking? China is an excellent example, while they have moved to a state managed capitalist market style economy now (one in which you get the best of both worlds, the average person is ground under the wheels of capitalism at the direction of the state), their flavour of socialism was incredibly effective at modernisation. Whether you consider that conceptually good or bad is personal (healthcare, literacy, poverty uplift, etc vs the many negative externalities of industrialisation), but you can't say it wasn't effective.
In a lot of ways, the same happened in the Soviet Union. The poor farmers were never socialists. Socialism was imposed on them by upper-middle-class intellectuals.
The poor farmers wanted to stop being serfs, but only so that they could own their own land. That wouldn't make them quite millionaires, but they imagined that they'd be comfortably-well-off. (Today, a millionaire is not much more than comfortably-well-off, but in Steinbeck's time it put you in Jay Gatsby territory.)
So the proper socialist revolution never happened. The workers never got control of the means of production. It just passed from an obscenely-wealthy autocrat to a bunch of oligarchs, who promptly made themselves wealthy.
It does seem to be pretty good evidence that the socialist revolution is never coming. Even if it's in everybody's best interest on paper, it's too hard to get them all on the same page. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma: there are just too many reasons for people to conclude that their short-term interest outweighs the global long-term interest.
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.
I think I like the suggestion, but it’s firmly on the capitalism end of the spectrum. Profit sharing is one of the incentives I look at when looking for a job. Not too far off from employee stock programs or matching 401k with company stock.
If you had suggested the “public” get a share of the profits then you start touching socialism but then I’d also hate the suggestion.
The public already gets its share via taxes, I'd argue, the problem that I see right now is really that the wins for the employees are (usually) limited to their salary, whereas owners get everything that's left over. And the more you already have, the more you are able to gain..
I would bet for most people, employee stock programs or company stock will provide far lower and more volatile return than an SP500 index fund. The US public has long been able to benefit from profit sharing, all they have to do is by a low cost broad market index fund.
The root of the problem is that the labor that most people in the US sell is not in sufficiently high demand to afford them the compensation to be able to afford the lifestyle they expect, since they are competing with the rest of the world willing to do it for less.
Regarding the first point: owners typically pay themselves a salary in addition to owning the company and thus benefit from both. Employees do not have this advantage.
The two problems are not mutually exclusive, and certainly unskilled labour is a significant problem for a good fraction of the population; but if this were the only problem, then we wouldn't see the amount of wealth concentration and decoupling of productivity from income that we observe.
There is no guarantee in both the owners salary or equity growing (just like an employee has no guarantee of having their job tomorrow).
The wealth concentration is a combination of government policy rewarding asset owners and automation and communication and transportation technologies increasing competition for labor sellers.
The automation also allows enormous economies of scale such that fewer businesses can do it all, which is also why you see wealth concentration.
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).
I always thought that those that can deny something control it. The workers, by withdrawing their labour, have effective control. However it’s rarely exercised and I think that’s partly because of lack of belief that it’s true.
These days of course, workers’ days are numbered as automation will eventually make them extinct.
It's not just lack of belief, it's a coordination problem.
Just because we admit to ourselves that it probably won't end well if we keep allowing the powerful to use their power to get ever more power, for us personally it can be profitable to go along with it. Or too risky to go against it.
The "iron law of oligarchy" (Robert Michels) says that any large organizations will be controlled by a small organized leadership - so the organized minority will control it.
Not sure we can really define China as a communist state, particularly nowadays. Their economy is essentially just state managed capitalism now, which is probably economically closer to facism than it is communism.
Makes me wonder how many of the complaints about capitalism are really about corruption, 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.
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)
I wonder if people would have a more favorable view of it if it wasn't a way to whitewash the wealthy crushing the poor as if they were a commodity like stones, and then direct blame onto the poor for not working hard enough, and present the crushing as virtuous.
As a parlour game for the wealthy to use markets to find the best price for a slab of marble or a Faberge egg, it's fine. As a system for finding the best price for a loaf of bread which doesn't take into account how close to starving someone's family is, it's terrible.
As a system where an insurance company puts a number on a spreadsheet for the risk of a warehouse full of wood burning down and the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system, it's fine. As a system where the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system in an office based on how expensive it is to replace the dead employees, it's terrible. When the employer can't put a sprinkler system in because any competitor which doesn't can undercut prices, it's terrible. [Regulation which says offices must have fire alarms does not fix the general class of this race-to-the-bottom / exploit inhumanely as hard as possible problem].
When people can use contracts to come together to build a rocket engine, it's fine. When the idea is that you would use your perfect knowledge of everything down to whether a workplace has a fire alarm before deciding whether to accept a contract, it's ridiculous. You don't have enough lifetime or cynicism to find all the nooks and crannies people will be trying to cut corners with your life and safety. When the idea is that humans are rational and cannot be manipulated, it's ridiculous. When the practical result of that is that the wealthy can tell the employees that unions are bad, it's terrible. Note that this isn't classical corruption because the wealthy might believe that's true (unions harm the wealthy!), it's a problem of wealthy having lawyers and marketers to spread their message and nannys to free up time for them to learn things, vs others having no spare time or effort or assistance to counter it.
As a system where the person with the best use for a piece of land can buy it and use it, it's fine. As a system where employees have a 2 hour commute because all the homes closer have been bought up by the wealthy who don't even live in their spare homes, and this effect keeps one class of people as 'employees' because they have neither time nor effort nor opportunity to do anything about it, it sucks.
If we all had a magical base quality of life and could "play at capitalism" as a parlour game where the points don't matter the consequences are abstract - you know, like the rich do - then a lot more people would like it.
Consider the situation where 'Capitalism rewards risk' but the only sensible advice for what to do with your money is to invest it in a diversified index fund because anything else is risky. If you do that and stay relatively poor, you aren't taking enough risk to get rich, you idiot, get good. If you take risk and lose, you're an idiot who should have known better and invested in something else "like I did". If you take a risk and win, then you can play off your "lottery win" as you being a more meritorious capitalist. This leads to a situation where the more desperately someone needs money, the less risk they can afford to take to get money, trapping people at the bottom. The less they can afford lawyers to review contracts, the less they can afford to wait and consider their options, the less they can afford to travel for more options, the fewer options they have in terms of borrowing or terms of renting.
As a haves-get-richer, have-nots-get-screwed system, it's bad - at least, unfair, inhumane, eploitative, cruel.
Financing election campaigns is corruption. Then again I suppose you can't operate elections without some type of campaigning happening someway... So how to fix it is nearly unsolvable question.
That is the natural end state of capitalism though? Capital begets more capital, eventually concentrating power as far as possible. Sure you get upstarts here and there, particularly with technological innovation, but the trend is always consistent.
Arguably the natural end state of every system to be honest. Power, money and influence were concentrated in the Soviet Union, they're concentrated in modern day China...
Too Big To Jail, official US attorney general position, never forget:
> 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.
> 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
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.
I don't like getting wrapped up in lexicography, but any meaningful definition of socialism has to include government ownership of the means of production. What the super-rich want is government protection for them, but they don't want to government taking over their property. So it confuses the issue to call it "socialism".
It's certainly the case that the rich want protections that they deny everybody else, in ways that run counter to the dictates of capitalism. But it's not "socialism". It's just really bad capitalism.
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.
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".
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.
And then there’s the implicit monetary policy of putting asset owners ahead of income earners by debasing the currency.
Those are also wealth transfers. I don't have that statistic to easily pull up, but the federal government has a nice website to easily show an example, one that happens to dwarf all the others in dollar amount.
> The majority of federal government spending is a wealth transfer to old and poor people
Sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.
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.
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.
>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
Both of these are also true statements.
>Things are never an actual "wealth transfer" when both sides consider it worthwhile-- that's just an ordinary trade.
It's not an ordinary trade, it's a forced payment via the government's monopoly on violence, which is why it falls into a wealth transfer. I would consider it (mostly) worthwhile when it's students because they turn into future workers.
However, I would prefer to opt out of social security and old age healthcare tax (Medicare) because I will be getting less into the system than I pay into the system. That is an inevitable future due to demographics.
Note that I am not saying wealth transfers are categorically bad, just wanted to point out the hilarity of a country that can spend $1T+ per year on wealth transfers and still be afraid of "socialism". And it's far more than $1T, because the health insurance mandate to not price health insurance based on health risks is another massive wealth transfer probably worth at least another trillion.
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?
I’d like to understand how they defined capitalism vs free enterprise for the poll participants.
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.
As I understand it, free enterprise is regulated environment to prevent monopolies, capitalism is unregulated which results in monopolies and kills free enterprise.
> 81% viewing free enterprise positively, compared with 54% for capitalism and 39% for socialism
> capitalism is much more likely than free enterprise to be associated with unequal distribution of wealth.
This is why the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" are largely useless in political debates, and people are mostly talking past each other.
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
Branding with historical bad words and other propaganda can't put a lid on how power to influence our future in a meaningful way is concentrating into fewer and fewer hands.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
> 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.
That's irrelevant to the point.
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.
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.
> We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures.
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...
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.
State ownership of many companies is not the same as socialism.
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.
China now has the second largest number of millionaires in USD after the US.
State ownership of companies is LITERALLY the definition of socialism.
> a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
State ownership of all companies, yes, that's one implementation of socialism though not "literally the definition". But obviously this isn't how China is now and even state-owned companies in China generally operate in a market and can be in competition with private companies and other state-owned companies. In fact the Chinese eoconomy is probably more competitive that in the West now, it is fierce competition for profit with generally free enterprise.
There are state-owned companies in all Western countries, by the way.
I don't think that you are familiar with the history and economy of China.
> unless you consider that socialism = "social safety net measures", which it isn't
I agree with you that socialism, properly understood, ought to mean something much broader than a social safety net. But not everyone sees it this way.
In my experience, a lot of Americans really do equate social security and welfare as socialism. Or even public education, never mind anything remotely resembling universal healthcare. These people believe that taxation is theft and they're vocal about expressing it. This used to be fringe, but it's a major political movement.
Young Americans have grown up in an environment where anything publicly beneficial is painted as "socialist" by one of the major political parties. Many of them have taken the message to heart.
One thing I learned from observing the Americans is how tainted the concept of socialism has become in their discourse. I have a hunch there has been some cultural engineering behind this, but reasons aside, the confusion is unfortunate.
I learned that when an American talks about socialism, they usually mean communism and often the accompanying dictatorships that enable this oppressive system. Meanwhile, the social-democratic countries score high on measures of democracy, rule of law, human rights, regulation contra anti-competitive practices, consumer protection, environment protection, etc.
It is also important to understand what capitalism means. The theory assumes free markets, but that requires an enforcer that breaks up monopolies and upholds rules for competition. Lots of cognitive dissonance there for people calling themselves capitalists while at the same time screaming against intervention, but those rather should call themselves libertarians.
> I have a hunch there has been some cultural engineering behind this, but reasons aside, the confusion is unfortunate.
Yes, it's literally the result of decades of CIA Cold War propaganda, often using conservative Christianity and preachers like Billy Graham (who was funded by the CIA) to scare people into believing communism was literally satanic in nature. Most of American pop culture, media culture and even most subcultures from the 1950s onward were funded by the CIA, if not outright psyops. Americans are more controlled than North Koreans and they don't even realize it.
The 1980s was almost 50 years ago, and history continues to move.
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 at all.
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.
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".
some of these media outlets manipulate public opinion.
majority of the public can't differentiate between commerce & capitalism. nor socialism vs 'free markets'.
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.
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.
The reason the Chinese system works the way it does is precisely because 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.
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?
i can even agree that Xi was voted in by the people but that doesn't change the point.
I'm not talking about democracy - but a 'permission' system.
In the west - you've to be 'blessed' to become an economic player - there's the myth of competition (but someone has to bless that competition) - whereas in the Chinese economy there's no favored party - BYD isn't favored more by the gvt because it's large anymore than the small upstart that's making electric cars.
> isn't Xi and the other party members capable of doing exactly this? - hence I said the CPC can tip the scales once in a while but in terms of free market competition the Chinese economy is more 'free'
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.
All governments do stuff. Usually it's passing and enforcing laws. What set of principals stands (or lurks) behind these laws - that's where the meat of the matter is.
Not quite. Communism is when the gov controls the means of production. The end result is indeed shitty stuff due to lack of competition. But you can achieve similar enshittification by failing to break monopolies etc.
Premier example: enforcement of abstract property rights. This is Big Government™ but since most holders of abstract property rights are rich people, it's capitalism.
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.
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.
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 funny part is that the era commonly referred to as "the golden age of capitalism" (post New Deal, post WWII) in the US is the period of time where it was the most "socialist".
Regardless of your actual views on the systems, as a non-american it's absolutely insane that so many people are incapable of thinking of one positive of a socialist economic system. I wouldn't describe myself as either a socialist or a capatalist, but with just a cursory ponder I can think of several benefits to both. The complete inability for critical thinking is quite saddening, and quite worrying considering america's influence.
I'm convinced most Americans have no idea what socialism means, or even what capitalism means.
That also includes self-described supporters of socialism, who almost always mean something closer to social democracy. They tend to point to places like Scandinavia, who are absolutely capitalist. They just have better social safety nets.
They're misusing the term, but at least they're reasonably consistent about it. The opponents of "socialism" tend to point to places like the Soviet Union as proof that "socialism" cannot work. And when supporters point to the success of Scandinavian-type policies, opponents insist it cannot work because it's socialism.
We could have had some kind of honest discussion about which social safety net policies are worth having. Instead we're stuck in arguments about dictionaries.
It doesn't help that we've been drowning in propaganda that says "capitalism = freedom" and "socialism = oppression" since forever.
What I think is "absolutely insane" is how oblivious of recent history people are. Up until the 1980s half of Europe was socialist, and it is at that time that China started moving away from a socialist economy, too. It was abandoned everywhere.
Not entirely sure what that has to do with what I was saying? Unless you're trying to provide an example of a lack of critical thinking? China is an excellent example, while they have moved to a state managed capitalist market style economy now (one in which you get the best of both worlds, the average person is ground under the wheels of capitalism at the direction of the state), their flavour of socialism was incredibly effective at modernisation. Whether you consider that conceptually good or bad is personal (healthcare, literacy, poverty uplift, etc vs the many negative externalities of industrialisation), but you can't say it wasn't effective.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
— John Steinbeck, still as relevant as ever
In a lot of ways, the same happened in the Soviet Union. The poor farmers were never socialists. Socialism was imposed on them by upper-middle-class intellectuals.
The poor farmers wanted to stop being serfs, but only so that they could own their own land. That wouldn't make them quite millionaires, but they imagined that they'd be comfortably-well-off. (Today, a millionaire is not much more than comfortably-well-off, but in Steinbeck's time it put you in Jay Gatsby territory.)
So the proper socialist revolution never happened. The workers never got control of the means of production. It just passed from an obscenely-wealthy autocrat to a bunch of oligarchs, who promptly made themselves wealthy.
It does seem to be pretty good evidence that the socialist revolution is never coming. Even if it's in everybody's best interest on paper, it's too hard to get them all on the same page. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma: there are just too many reasons for people to conclude that their short-term interest outweighs the global long-term interest.
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.
I think I like the suggestion, but it’s firmly on the capitalism end of the spectrum. Profit sharing is one of the incentives I look at when looking for a job. Not too far off from employee stock programs or matching 401k with company stock.
If you had suggested the “public” get a share of the profits then you start touching socialism but then I’d also hate the suggestion.
The public already gets its share via taxes, I'd argue, the problem that I see right now is really that the wins for the employees are (usually) limited to their salary, whereas owners get everything that's left over. And the more you already have, the more you are able to gain..
I can see the point but degree matters. If taxes are socialism then the world is essentially 100% socialist, and the word is essentially meaningless.
ChatGPT says 75-80% of business wealth in US is in publicly traded companies, so I’m skeptical the term owner is super useful either.
I would bet for most people, employee stock programs or company stock will provide far lower and more volatile return than an SP500 index fund. The US public has long been able to benefit from profit sharing, all they have to do is by a low cost broad market index fund.
The root of the problem is that the labor that most people in the US sell is not in sufficiently high demand to afford them the compensation to be able to afford the lifestyle they expect, since they are competing with the rest of the world willing to do it for less.
Regarding the first point: owners typically pay themselves a salary in addition to owning the company and thus benefit from both. Employees do not have this advantage.
The two problems are not mutually exclusive, and certainly unskilled labour is a significant problem for a good fraction of the population; but if this were the only problem, then we wouldn't see the amount of wealth concentration and decoupling of productivity from income that we observe.
There is no guarantee in both the owners salary or equity growing (just like an employee has no guarantee of having their job tomorrow).
The wealth concentration is a combination of government policy rewarding asset owners and automation and communication and transportation technologies increasing competition for labor sellers.
The automation also allows enormous economies of scale such that fewer businesses can do it all, which is also why you see wealth concentration.
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).
I always thought that those that can deny something control it. The workers, by withdrawing their labour, have effective control. However it’s rarely exercised and I think that’s partly because of lack of belief that it’s true.
These days of course, workers’ days are numbered as automation will eventually make them extinct.
It's not just lack of belief, it's a coordination problem.
Just because we admit to ourselves that it probably won't end well if we keep allowing the powerful to use their power to get ever more power, for us personally it can be profitable to go along with it. Or too risky to go against it.
The "iron law of oligarchy" (Robert Michels) says that any large organizations will be controlled by a small organized leadership - so the organized minority will control it.
As I said, it's always uncertain how much power is in the hands of those who nominally are supposed to have it.
But it's also not an either-or. I view states as more socialist the less power is concentrated with a few.
And in non-militarized states, that's a lot about how concentrated wealth is.
Not sure we can really define China as a communist state, particularly nowadays. Their economy is essentially just state managed capitalism now, which is probably economically closer to facism than it is communism.
Socialism is only for the super-duper rich, the 0.001%. Too big to fail, trickle down economics and all that.
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 corruption, 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.
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)
But are either of these Capitalism? Sure they’re capitalist in the way the world works but the OP is touching on ideals and theory.
I wonder if people would have a more favorable view of it if it wasn't a way to whitewash the wealthy crushing the poor as if they were a commodity like stones, and then direct blame onto the poor for not working hard enough, and present the crushing as virtuous.
As a parlour game for the wealthy to use markets to find the best price for a slab of marble or a Faberge egg, it's fine. As a system for finding the best price for a loaf of bread which doesn't take into account how close to starving someone's family is, it's terrible.
As a system where an insurance company puts a number on a spreadsheet for the risk of a warehouse full of wood burning down and the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system, it's fine. As a system where the owner uses that to decide whether to install a fire alarm and sprinkler system in an office based on how expensive it is to replace the dead employees, it's terrible. When the employer can't put a sprinkler system in because any competitor which doesn't can undercut prices, it's terrible. [Regulation which says offices must have fire alarms does not fix the general class of this race-to-the-bottom / exploit inhumanely as hard as possible problem].
When people can use contracts to come together to build a rocket engine, it's fine. When the idea is that you would use your perfect knowledge of everything down to whether a workplace has a fire alarm before deciding whether to accept a contract, it's ridiculous. You don't have enough lifetime or cynicism to find all the nooks and crannies people will be trying to cut corners with your life and safety. When the idea is that humans are rational and cannot be manipulated, it's ridiculous. When the practical result of that is that the wealthy can tell the employees that unions are bad, it's terrible. Note that this isn't classical corruption because the wealthy might believe that's true (unions harm the wealthy!), it's a problem of wealthy having lawyers and marketers to spread their message and nannys to free up time for them to learn things, vs others having no spare time or effort or assistance to counter it.
As a system where the person with the best use for a piece of land can buy it and use it, it's fine. As a system where employees have a 2 hour commute because all the homes closer have been bought up by the wealthy who don't even live in their spare homes, and this effect keeps one class of people as 'employees' because they have neither time nor effort nor opportunity to do anything about it, it sucks.
If we all had a magical base quality of life and could "play at capitalism" as a parlour game where the points don't matter the consequences are abstract - you know, like the rich do - then a lot more people would like it.
Consider the situation where 'Capitalism rewards risk' but the only sensible advice for what to do with your money is to invest it in a diversified index fund because anything else is risky. If you do that and stay relatively poor, you aren't taking enough risk to get rich, you idiot, get good. If you take risk and lose, you're an idiot who should have known better and invested in something else "like I did". If you take a risk and win, then you can play off your "lottery win" as you being a more meritorious capitalist. This leads to a situation where the more desperately someone needs money, the less risk they can afford to take to get money, trapping people at the bottom. The less they can afford lawyers to review contracts, the less they can afford to wait and consider their options, the less they can afford to travel for more options, the fewer options they have in terms of borrowing or terms of renting.
As a haves-get-richer, have-nots-get-screwed system, it's bad - at least, unfair, inhumane, eploitative, cruel.
Could it be that capitalism implies or causes corruption?
I’m thinking any human made system implies corruption
Corruption of what?
I would say that private financing of election campaigns causes corruption. It becomes one dollar one vote instead of one person one vote.
Financing election campaigns is corruption. Then again I suppose you can't operate elections without some type of campaigning happening someway... So how to fix it is nearly unsolvable question.
The US is not really capitalist, it’s an oligarchy - a small number of people like Larry Ellison essentially control everything.
It’s always been like that, even going back to the 19th century and the robber barons of the gilded age
That is the natural end state of capitalism though? Capital begets more capital, eventually concentrating power as far as possible. Sure you get upstarts here and there, particularly with technological innovation, but the trend is always consistent.
Arguably the natural end state of every system to be honest. Power, money and influence were concentrated in the Soviet Union, they're concentrated in modern day China...
This was by design of the oligarchic founders, who were very skeptical of the majority, so it goes back to the 18th century too.
Too Big To Jail, official US attorney general position, never forget:
> 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.
> 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
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/eric-holder-backt...
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.
I don't like getting wrapped up in lexicography, but any meaningful definition of socialism has to include government ownership of the means of production. What the super-rich want is government protection for them, but they don't want to government taking over their property. So it confuses the issue to call it "socialism".
It's certainly the case that the rich want protections that they deny everybody else, in ways that run counter to the dictates of capitalism. But it's not "socialism". It's just really bad capitalism.
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.
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:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
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.
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.
Those are also wealth transfers. I don't have that statistic to easily pull up, but the federal government has a nice website to easily show an example, one that happens to dwarf all the others in dollar amount.
> The majority of federal government spending is a wealth transfer to old and poor people
Sorry, but that's a ridiculous take.
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.
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.
>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
Both of these are also true statements.
>Things are never an actual "wealth transfer" when both sides consider it worthwhile-- that's just an ordinary trade.
It's not an ordinary trade, it's a forced payment via the government's monopoly on violence, which is why it falls into a wealth transfer. I would consider it (mostly) worthwhile when it's students because they turn into future workers.
However, I would prefer to opt out of social security and old age healthcare tax (Medicare) because I will be getting less into the system than I pay into the system. That is an inevitable future due to demographics.
Note that I am not saying wealth transfers are categorically bad, just wanted to point out the hilarity of a country that can spend $1T+ per year on wealth transfers and still be afraid of "socialism". And it's far more than $1T, because the health insurance mandate to not price health insurance based on health risks is another massive wealth transfer probably worth at least another trillion.
Who is they? Did the poll define it like that or are you projecting into the minds of the populace?
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?
I’d like to understand how they defined capitalism vs free enterprise for the poll participants.
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.
As I understand it, free enterprise is regulated environment to prevent monopolies, capitalism is unregulated which results in monopolies and kills free enterprise.
> 81% viewing free enterprise positively, compared with 54% for capitalism and 39% for socialism
> capitalism is much more likely than free enterprise to be associated with unequal distribution of wealth.
This is why the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" are largely useless in political debates, and people are mostly talking past each other.
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
Branding with historical bad words and other propaganda can't put a lid on how power to influence our future in a meaningful way is concentrating into fewer and fewer hands.
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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?
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.
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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...
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.
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.
> 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.
That's irrelevant to the point.
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.
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.
> We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures.
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...
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.
https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/reassessing-role...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/arc-of-the-chinese-...
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.
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.
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.
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.
China now has the second largest number of millionaires in USD after the US.
State ownership of companies is LITERALLY the definition of socialism.
> a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.
State ownership of all companies, yes, that's one implementation of socialism though not "literally the definition". But obviously this isn't how China is now and even state-owned companies in China generally operate in a market and can be in competition with private companies and other state-owned companies. In fact the Chinese eoconomy is probably more competitive that in the West now, it is fierce competition for profit with generally free enterprise.
There are state-owned companies in all Western countries, by the way.
I don't think that you are familiar with the history and economy of China.
> unless you consider that socialism = "social safety net measures", which it isn't
I agree with you that socialism, properly understood, ought to mean something much broader than a social safety net. But not everyone sees it this way.
In my experience, a lot of Americans really do equate social security and welfare as socialism. Or even public education, never mind anything remotely resembling universal healthcare. These people believe that taxation is theft and they're vocal about expressing it. This used to be fringe, but it's a major political movement.
Young Americans have grown up in an environment where anything publicly beneficial is painted as "socialist" by one of the major political parties. Many of them have taken the message to heart.
socialism = "social safety net measures", which it isn't but, as mentioned, it seems that many in the US think it is...
They think "Social Democracy", not pure "Socialism".
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.
I quite regularly read weird characterizations of the USSR, but 'feudal dictatorship'?
I learned that when an American talks about socialism, they usually mean communism and often the accompanying dictatorships that enable this oppressive system. Meanwhile, the social-democratic countries score high on measures of democracy, rule of law, human rights, regulation contra anti-competitive practices, consumer protection, environment protection, etc.
It is also important to understand what capitalism means. The theory assumes free markets, but that requires an enforcer that breaks up monopolies and upholds rules for competition. Lots of cognitive dissonance there for people calling themselves capitalists while at the same time screaming against intervention, but those rather should call themselves libertarians.
> I have a hunch there has been some cultural engineering behind this, but reasons aside, the confusion is unfortunate.
Yes, it's literally the result of decades of CIA Cold War propaganda, often using conservative Christianity and preachers like Billy Graham (who was funded by the CIA) to scare people into believing communism was literally satanic in nature. Most of American pop culture, media culture and even most subcultures from the 1950s onward were funded by the CIA, if not outright psyops. Americans are more controlled than North Koreans and they don't even realize it.
The 1980s was almost 50 years ago, and history continues to move.
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 at all.
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.
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".
What does would be mean?
some of these media outlets manipulate public opinion.
majority of the public can't differentiate between commerce & capitalism. nor socialism vs 'free markets'.
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.
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.
The reason the Chinese system works the way it does is precisely because 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.
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?
i can even agree that Xi was voted in by the people but that doesn't change the point.
I'm not talking about democracy - but a 'permission' system.
In the west - you've to be 'blessed' to become an economic player - there's the myth of competition (but someone has to bless that competition) - whereas in the Chinese economy there's no favored party - BYD isn't favored more by the gvt because it's large anymore than the small upstart that's making electric cars.
> isn't Xi and the other party members capable of doing exactly this? - hence I said the CPC can tip the scales once in a while but in terms of free market competition the Chinese economy is more 'free'
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.
30 years ago this sounded like lunacy, now its becoming apparent it was prophecy:
capitalism and artificial intelligence are the same thing
Socialism is when the government does stuff
All governments do stuff. Usually it's passing and enforcing laws. What set of principals stands (or lurks) behind these laws - that's where the meat of the matter is.
And if does a whole lot of stuff, then it's communism.
Communism is when it does whole lot of shitty stuff.
Ah, that explains why all the Q-pilled folks I know (in?)correctly believe the US government to be communist...
Not quite. Communism is when the gov controls the means of production. The end result is indeed shitty stuff due to lack of competition. But you can achieve similar enshittification by failing to break monopolies etc.
If it does stuff for poor people it's communism. If it does stuff for rich people it's capitalism.
Premier example: enforcement of abstract property rights. This is Big Government™ but since most holders of abstract property rights are rich people, it's capitalism.
If it does stuff for the party officials, it’s communism.
No one has done anything for poor people since Jesus of Nazareth, probably.