56% Believe U.S. Heading Towards Socialism, Only 18% Think It’s a Good Thing

Seems to me we are half way there. Sure those that are having trouble finding a job or those who choose to live off the state would be in favor of socialism. That said, socialism can be by degrees. Cananda is a clear democracy with shadings of socialism with their health care system for instance. Perhaps it is not possible to have a government without some socialism. What do you think?


www.liveleak.com...

I bet it would pop 38% of the people's minds if they knew social security, medicaid, medicare, welfare, public schools, public universities, police and fire departments were socialist.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Yeah, thats what I mean by we are half way there.

In case you're interested. the poll itself is in a link to a PDF here.

Polling was conducted by telephone July 27-28, 2010, in the evenings. The total sample is 900 registered voters nationwide with a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points.

Results are of registered voters, unless otherwise noted.

Democrats n=336, ±5; Republicans n=366, ±5; Independents n=140, ±8

The specific question was: "45. Do you think it would be a good thing or a bad thing for the United States
to move away from capitalism and more toward socialism?"

Interesting wording that relies on the respondee's definition of socialism. See here.

In addition, the question implies that socialism is replacing capitalism, which in democratic socialist nations, which are among the most successful of nation, this is not the case.

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
The specific question was: "45. Do you think it would be a good thing or a bad thing for the United States
to move away from capitalism and more toward socialism?"

Define socialism. It seems to me that the European nations (of which I am a part) consider socialism to be something different from what your average American thinks it to be.

In the US Socialism is often equated to Communism and selling your soul to the Devil himself.
In Europe Socialism usually equates to some state intervention as a part of ensuring a coherent society, such as health, welfare et al.

I think the term "socialism" in the US is the problem.

Regards

Originally posted by ~Lucidity

I bet it would pop 38% of the people's minds if they knew social security, medicaid, medicare, welfare, public schools, public universities, police and fire departments were socialist.

And look how well all of those are working out here. Social Security is going broke, medicaid/medicare are rampant with fraud, the welfare system is broken, public schools are horrid, public colleges (at least the ones I've been to) are nothing more than "this is my opinion and I'm right cause I'm the professor so memorize this and repeat it back to me on this test", police and fire departments are getting their forces cut. Pretty much everything our government tries to run goes broke or has rampant fraud running through it. At this point, I wouldn't trust our government to run a marathon.

Try heading towards total collapse. Along with the rest of the world..

Mad Max eat your heart out

I would rather like to see a poll on how many % who believes that the US is heading towards Corporate Fascism instead.

Because what many of us here in Europe are seeing in the US are not Socialism as we know, and have known Socialism in Europe.

I know there's a big difference when you compare the political spectrums of Europe and the U.S - and it's impossible to directly compare the two on the same spectrum.

And most Americans and Europeans can not even agree upon a common and correct definition of Socialism here on ATS!

But who's right - who has the most correct political spectrum to call someone a socialist?

Many Europeans would probably say Europe since both Fascism & Socialism and Liberalism were invented and implemented here in our systems first.

And I have even heard that the Liberals are called socialists by some people? I mean c'mon, if you call a genuine Liberal who stands for total economic freedom (Liber = Free - in Latin) and stands for more individual freedom, a socialist? - how damn extreme right wing would you not then be yourself?

And now some are saying that the nazi's had socialist politics - how darn right wing would they then not be themselves to even consider and claim that the nazi's of Germany in the late 1930's were a leftist party?

I think this problem occur when you compare your political systems with those in Europe ONLY on the American "economic scale" in the analysis.

In Europe when we are analysing political systems - the SOCIAL axis/scale of the society have always been of the same importance as the economic axis to get a fair analysis of political parties in our societies.

But to be fair, the political spectrum as a whole, has now drifted towards the right and towards the more economic neo-liberalism right in politics since those days - much of this because of the growing globalisation process.

(A good example of this would be the "Leftist" British Labour Party who used to be on the ideological and economical left on the European political spectrum - but has now the last 40 years drifted up over toward the right side on the spectrum)

Here we can clearly see how the "Leftist" Labour has drifted way into the right field over the years since 1970's.

How The Parties Have Shifted:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/12421b947d26.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2a6a696e90c5.jpg[/atsimg]

www.politicalcompass.org...

(Sorry for using the UK as an example to make my point, but it's the same all over Europe, and most "main" parties has been drifting upwards to the autoritarian right and towards more economic neo-liberalism these last 25-40 years.)

Adam Smith's and the classical Liberalism of that time meant total economic freedom (Capitalism) & free markets guided by the invisible hand (the free market forces) - they were like the "freedom party people" down on the Libertarian Right on the spectrum.

But he was not a 100% laissez-faire-liberal because he also believed that some Governmental "public" institutions were needed for the society - and at the same time he wanted the Governments to serve the people and help the free market, and not the other way around.

But that was a long time ago, and Adam Smith ideas and theories has now been perverted by lobbyism and corporate interests & mega-monopolies, and the rules of the "free market" has been destroyed by Corporatism.

So the classic Liberalism which was invented in the Industrial Britain in the old days can not possibly be compared with what Liberalism and to be a Liberal means today in the U.S.

Today's Liberal parties of the EU are considered to be mostly center-right socially, and some of them are hardcore neo-liberalists on the economical right.

And what about your founding fathers? wasn't many of them (by the European spectrum and standards) Liberals and Progressives who wanted to break away from the Conservative system and the status quo with England? In Europe they would had been considered to be extreme progressive in comparison with the conservatives.

(But it's probably constructed and done this way to confuse people - LOL!)

Now it's up side down and no more black & white in comparison, and the two parties had the other one's political platform and agenda back then - haven't they almost also changed places with eachother on the political spectrum since the old days?

The political definition of several parties has surely changed a lot through the times.

And what we are seeing is a move up towards the Authoritarian Right (Fascism) and to the extreme form of perverted corpocratic neo-liberalism in the economy.

We are not seeing classical Socialism of the people for the people - what we are seeing is some kind of perverted bailout socialism only for the rich and for the Corporations - they are Privatising the profits and are socialising the losses to the masses!

That is not Socialism - that is Corporate Fascism!

The Corporations are letting you and the taxpayers to pay the bill for their risky investments!

But I know one thing for sure - you can't yet compare by name the political systems of Europe and the U.S with eachother directly, you have to factor other stuff into the equation - otherwise, the result of our political analysis will end up wrong and always be skewed.

[edit on 31-7-2010 by Chevalerous]