[flagged]
Is this a self-report or what’s your point?
How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
11–20 of 122 posts
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#12It'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.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#13Socialism is when the government does stuff
And if does a whole lot of stuff, then it's communism.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#14Capitalism 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
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#15The 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.
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".
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#16The 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…
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.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#17Socialism 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.
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.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#18Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#19Socialism 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.
Re: How Americans view capitalism, socialism and free enterprise
#20Socialism 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.
Could it be that capitalism implies or causes corruption?