United States | News & Politics
I think the full text of the report regarding this is enlightening:
The survey also took Americans’ temperature about about capitalism, socialism, and even communism. Most Americans have favorable views of capitalism (59 percent) and unfavorable views of socialism (57 percent) and especially communism (86 percent).
Some groups stand out with greater support for socialism than capitalism. For instance, more Democrats have positive views of socialism (67 percent) than capitalism (50 percent). Strong liberals lead the way with 82 percent having favorable views of socialism compared to 28 percent who feel positive toward capitalism. Among Americans under 30, 62 percent feel favorable toward socialism, and 50 percent feel favorable toward capitalism.
Only 14 percent of Americans have favorable views of communism, while 86 percent have unfavorable views. Some groups like communism more than others. The percentages of Americans who feel favorable toward communism are as follows:
34 percent under 30.
29 percent of strong liberals.
28 percent of residents in big cities.
26 percent of African Americans.
I pasted the whole thing here because there's a lot of interesting nuggets in there. On the surface, 59% having a favorable view of capitalism and 86% viewing communism unfavorably seems bad. But when you get into the details, I think it's very positive for us. Fully 98% of age 65+ folks see communism unfavorably; the results are incredibly skewed by age (which I know, it's not a substitute for class but it's useful from an informational standpoint). That point about Democrats not just seeing socialism more favorably than capitalism but seeing it that way by a huge margin is encouraging to me. As material conditions worsen I think those people will be the easiest to push in our direction - I know we have issues with Democratic voters, but I think it's reasonable to assume a very large number of them would be more inclined to support socialism or communism over outright fascism under certain conditions. Lastly, those points about big city residents and African Americans. Those results are not split by age. So given the shape of the curve of views of communism, I think it's reasonable two assume that younger people in those two age groups view communism favorably by well over 34%.
I appreciate that Cato asked about communism and not just socialism. Having a favorable view of socialism will include a lot of people who just like AOC and universal healthcare. Not that those are bad things in themselves, but saying you like communism is much less ambiguous.
The word communism gets thrown around too much, especially in politics. Literally, anything better than capitalism should be the new norm. That should be what they ask in any kind of polling. Everybody knows that the word communism has been thrown around for decades as synonymous for enemy. The ignorant will continue to equate it as such. The framing for it should be, "how do we get away from capitalism because here are all the plenty proven reasons we know it doesn't work". Yada yada yada
As communists, we want communism. It's better for us to break the club of anticommunism than think we can avoid it by hiding the label. In doing so, in the equation "communism = Actually Existing Socialism = bad" we should break the second leg, defending existing socialism and engaging honestly. Rather than let fascists beat us anyways as we continue to dream of an ever-more perfect world that will never exist as long as we don't roll our sleeves up and build it, running into the same struggles socialism in real life has already been met with in the process and marring their "perfect" image.
Today they do, at least.
Yep, and if trends continue tomorrow even more will.
the trend is an accident enabled by lack of vigilance on part of the ruling class with it comes to social media; i expect it reverse once they figure out how to make social media just as captured as legacy media
It's also just true that capitalism is deteriorating even within the imperial core.
Well, I hope they also vote.
That's much less important than organizing. I hope they actually get organized!