Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

news.gallup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 122 posts

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#51

Post by soco »

simianwords wrote: post #41
dzonga wrote: post #21

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…

> 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 exactl…

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#52

Post by vintermann »

brianbest101 wrote: post #14

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#53

Post by Ekaros »

lapcat wrote: post #43
inigyou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that capitalism implies or causes corruption?

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#54

Post by soco »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #26
DamonHD wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Funny how subsidies to megacorps and tax exemptions are never "wealth transfer" just daily business.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#55

Post by ocius »

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#57

Post by vintermann »

inigyou wrote: post #30
tw04 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#58

Post by soco »

vintermann wrote: post #12

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).

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#59

Post by rebolek »

RickJWagner wrote: post #9

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.

Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise

#60

Post by vintermann »

soco wrote: post #58
vintermann wrote: post #12

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).

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.

Post reply on HN