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Poll: Americans Like Free Markets More than Capitalism and Socialism More Than a Govt Managed Economy

Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 6 months ago to Economics
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From the Article:

"A recent Reason-Rupe poll asked Americans to rate their favorability towards capitalism, socialism, a free market economy, and a government managed economy. Americans have the most favorable reaction to free markets (69%), followed by capitalism (55%), socialism (36%), and coming in last was a government managed economy (30%).

Fully 66 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of an economy managed by the government while 58 percent have a negative view of socialism. Only 21 percent reported a negative opinion of free markets but nearly double that, 38 percent, have a negative view of capitalism."

Now for the good part. The Pollsters determined that the Americans that liked socialism didn't know the meaning of the word. They thought it meant Government goodies to the impoverished. Education works so well.
SOURCE URL: http://reason.com/poll/2015/02/12/poll-americans-like-free-markets-more-th


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  • Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 6 months ago
    "Among college-aged Americans, 58 percent report a positive view of socialism and 56 percent a positive view of capitalism. "
    Proof that higher education is only as effective as the chosen curriculum. Feed your horses sawdust and they will eventually die of starvation. It's going to take mass starvation to overcome the propaganda.
    Anyone in college remember Soviet USSR's magnificent success? That is the result of socialism, you ignorant, progressive, politically correct fools.

    Which way to Atlantis?
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  • Posted by Temlakos 9 years, 6 months ago
    They obviously don't understand what capitalism or socialism are. To my way of thinking:

    Capitalism = government keeps its hands off completely, and that means no special favors to anyone, big or small.

    Communism: the government owns it all.

    Socialism = everything in-between. That includes the quasi-socialism in which some players--big companies or big "populist" lobbies--buy special favors. The Nomenklatura (that's Russian for the Aristocracy of Pull) are still the Nomenklatura, whether Jim Taggart/Orren Boyle or Fred Kinnan dominates its membership.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 6 months ago
    Can someone explain the difference between capitalism and "free markets?" Up 'till now, I was under the impression that capitalism meant free markets. Is it merely the different terminology that has people choosing free market over capitalism? Has all the lefty raging against capitalism had that effect?+
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      The difference is in the context of the argument it's included in. In general, free market or laissez-faire capitalism (let it be) is completely free of control or intervention, while various forms of capitalism exist in many forms of political systems and always involve some form of intervention, such as anti-monopoly controls. Ayn Rand advocated laissez-faire capitalism.
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 9 years, 6 months ago
    Well, that shows what education is doing for young
    people; apparently, they don't understand, or know
    how to read, their own language. They seem to
    think that there is a difference between "free mark-
    et" and "capitalism". Ayn Rand said, "If it is not
    laissez-faire capitalism, it is not capitalism."
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      But that's kind of been the point of most on the left--to gain control of the definition of words and confuse and conflate. And, yes, to a large extent, they've been successful.
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  • Posted by davidmcnab 9 years, 6 months ago
    The word 'socialism' is somewhat meaningless and highly misleading unless properly qualified. There are actually two dimensions of 'socialism':
    (1) "Helping" the less fortunate through subsidies and tax breaks extracted from all, eg subsidised doctor visits
    (2) "Helping" the most fortunate through subsidies and tax breaks extracted from all, eg subsidies for corporate expansion programmes.
    These can exist separately or in combination.

    There is much debate too on how "free" a market can effectively become if left to itself - the idea of "market failure" - loved by micro-economists - of how monopolies/oligopolies can inflict levels of market inefficiency rivalling or exceeding that of many governments, due to their monopoly rents functioning similarly to a form of taxation, distorting the supply-demand curves. Austrian School adherents on the other hand argue vigorously that there is no such thing as market failure, and that any state a market is in, is ipso facto its most efficient.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      david; I'm not comfortable with your limited, i.e. "helping", definition. Socialism is collectivism at the level of the tribe up to the level of the state, with the state or community owning and/or controlling all production and distribution.
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      • Posted by davidmcnab 9 years, 6 months ago
        Zenphamy when you say "state or community owning and/or controlling all production and distribution", you're referring to an extreme of socialism seen in places like North Korea, Soviet Russia, early Communist China, Cambodia under Pol Pot etc. It's not quite as binary as you describe. Most 'socialist' governments recognise the productive capability of capitalism and allow it to whatever extent in their view maximises its benefits while mitigating what they see as its common drawbacks. Each socialist government draws the boundary at a different point. But for a socialist administration to "own and/or control ALL production and distribution" is virtually unheard of today.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 9 years, 6 months ago
    Ignorance kills more people than any other component of the environment. If you don't know how to produce food you will starve. If you don't know how to swim you drown. If you don't know how to defend your self someone will kill you. Ignorance is an important part of the evolutionary process.
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      Yet we're born in a state of ignorance having to rely on our mental ability to observe the actions and instructions of adults to learn how to accomplish most things in life until we gain enough knowledge and experience to begin abstract thought.

      I would guess that 'stupid' in place of ignorance in your comment would be more to the point. It's my thought that human evolution has actually been slowed down due to the ability of the stupid to survive and reproduce. Further that a great deal of the isms of history have been the result of the stupid in our species including the altruisms imposed in order to take care of the stupid.

      Some would argue that those thoughts edge into the realm of eugenics, but it is never-the-less, true.
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      • Posted by ProfChuck 9 years, 6 months ago
        Stupidity and ignorance are two very different things. Stupidity is the inability to think while ignorance is the condition of having a limited store of knowledge which restricts what you can think about. The greatest crime is that of willful ignorance.
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  • Posted by samreginab 9 years, 6 months ago
    I have a nephew that graduated summa cum laude from UT. We were all excited for him. "What was your degree in?" "Global studies." What are you going to do with that?" "Oh, no. It was an end in itself. You don't do anything with it." As AW says, "You have aimed at nothing, and you have hit it."
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 6 months ago
    This demonstrates well the fact that college aged are widely indoctrinated against capitalism. The fact they do not know its definition, yet are against it, makes me shake my head. The fact that they like the concept of socialism and do not understand that govt removes freedoms for it to work is also telling. what are they learning in basic econ classes anyway?
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      I doubt they're getting any basic Econ, just Sociology and Humanities crap.

      But how about the numbers preferring Free Market and Capitalism? I think that's some positive change.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 6 months ago
    Wait until they try the Fascist version. Never mind couldn't resist. If you missed it the fascist version is Socialism with a thin veneer of Capitalism both under heavy government control.

    What was the percentage on those who could define capitalism or for that matter root words like money, wealth, less than 5%?
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    • Posted by 9 years, 6 months ago
      For Rand, the definition of capitalism, was free market capitalism, only.

      And 'free market' in Objectivist philosophy is 'laissez faire', or let it be.

      I think the confusion of the language by socialist with the intent of affecting the way citizens think about those subject issues is the greatest danger to our society.
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