Tag Archives: Socialism

Some American Opinion in Summer 2025.

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            In late June 2025, 80 percent of Americans supported using vaccines to prevent diseases.  “Only” 20 percent opposed vaccines.[1]  Twenty percent still seems like a lot.  In September 2025, the figures remained essentially the same: 78 percent versus 22 percent.  In the September 2025 poll, the spectrum ranged from 93 percent of Democrats to 72 percent of Independents to 67 percent of Republicans.[2]  That’s a 26-point difference between Democrats and Republicans, so a yawning crevasse between the two major parties. 

On the one hand, the great majority of Americans approve of vaccines, regardless of party.  Arguably, RFK, Jr.’s crusade against vaccines is going to get him canned after the November 2026 mid-terms, if not before.  On the other hand, there’s a 21-point differences between Democrats and Independents as well as a 5-point difference between Independents and Republicans.  In short, Democrats ae near-unanimous on vaccines. Independents and Republics have a lot more unbelievers.  So, there’s the Democrats and there’s everyone else. 

            Since 2001 we’ve had the dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, the Perdue Pharma Oxycontin scandal, and the “China Shock.”   In 2021, 60 percent of Americans still had a favorable view of Capitalism.  Since then we’ve had the economic upheavals caused by Covid, AI, and a nasty bout of inflation.  Today only 54 percent view Capitalism favorably.[3]  That means that 46 percent disapprove of Capitalism or Don’t Know what they think. 

As with vaccines, there is a marked partisan divide.  Almost three-quarters (74 percent) of Republican have a favorable view of Capitalism, while only 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view.  What’s the theoretical alternative to Capitalism?  Socialism!  Well, 57 percent of Americans disapprove of Socialism,[4] compared with 39 percent who take a favorable view. 

            Playing with the numbers a bit.  A little over half (54 percent) take a favorable view of Capitalism and almost the same share (57 percent) disapprove of Socialism. So, that’s one block.  It is largely Republican.  At the same time, 26 percent of Republicans either don’t approve of Capitalism (at least in its present form) or Don’t Know what they think.  How can you be a Republican and NOT approve of Capitalism?  Well, you could be a Republican for cultural issues that are more important to you than the economic system.  Say, on abortion or illegal immigration. 

In contrast, 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of Capitalism, while 58 percent have an unfavorable view or Don’t Know what they think.  It may be reasonable to conjecture that there is a big overlap between that 58 percent of Democrats who don’t have a favorable view of Capitalism and the 39 percent of Americans who have a favorable view of Socialism.  That leaves 19 percent who don’t approve of either Capitalism or Socialism. 

            It may mean that many Democrats and some Republicans favor a “reformed” Capitalism, rather than its present form.  That doesn’t mean that they support Socialism.  

            In any event, vaccines are more credible than is Capitalism.  You don’t see that much in the news.  Bound to be younger people who believe in Socialism.  The Future belongs to Them. 

[1] NBC News poll, reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 4-11 July 2025, p. 17. 

[2] NBC News poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025. 

[3] Gallup poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 17. 

[4] NO, that doesn’t mean that people who live in New York City aren’t Americans. 

The Socialist Boogie Man 21 September 2019.

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When it comes to the trajectory of Socialism, critics of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are either ignorant or liars.  Historically, Socialism is an economic system in which 1.) society, not the private individual, owns the “means of production”; 2.) planning, rather than the market, determines the production of goods; and 3.) co-operation, rather than competition, is the guiding principle.

Socialism arose as a response to what people saw as the “injustices” of Capitalism; poverty, frequent unemployment; the destruction of the old handicraft industries, awful living conditions in factory cities, and a political system that tilted hard in favor of the capitalists.  Unions and strikes were illegal; there were high property requirements to be able to vote or run for office in most places; and real power belonged to the bourgeoisie.

Early Socialism (1820s-1848) argued that a humane economy and society could be created by building co-operative factories and towns managed by the people who worked and lived in them.  Many amusing stories come from this time.  (See: phalanstery; see: Brook Farm.)

In 1848 the German intellectuals Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, creating the form of Socialism later called Marxism.  Marxism argued that a) capitalist greed would lead to a few owners gobbling up all their competitors so that ownership would end in a few hands; b) capitalist greed would lead to wages being forced down to the bare survival level; c) poor people can’t buy the things they produced, so capitalist governments would fight wars to conquer new markets and destroy surplus production that they could not sell; and d) all the miserable poor people would recognize that they belonged to one class (“those who work”) and the few owners belonged to another class (“those that don’t”); and e) revolution would replace Capitalism with Socialism.  Everyone would live happily ever after.

Marxian Socialism became the dominant movement in Socialism after 1848.  However, capitalism began evolving: unions were legalized, wages and living standards rose, governments created social insurance systems, and the bourgeoisie accepted political democracy.  In the early 20th Century, Marxism split into two opposing groups.  Reformist or Democratic Socialists said that Marx’s predictions hadn’t worked out, that revolution had to give way to participating in democratic politics, and that politics required a willingness to bargain with the other classes.  In contrast, Communists said that to achieve Socialism it would take a small group of professional revolutionaries to organize “the masses” and then to lead a continuing revolution.

In practice, Communism turned out to represent “prison camps, overalls, and a damned long march to nowhere.”  Communism is what contemporary American conservatives describe as “Socialism.”

In fact, the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party, and the German Social Democratic Party have never been anything but guardians of political democracy.  They have never tried to create a monopoly on political power and they have never failed to yield power when they lost a democratic election.  Sanders and Warren clearly fall within this tradition.

Fight them on the real and many failings of Socialism, but don’t scare-monger and lie.