megimoo
04-11-2009, 09:28 AM
Tobin Harshaw "What A Fump This Guy Is !"
Perhaps the most telling line in the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “socialism” is this one: “The range of application of the term is broad.” That’s something to bear in mind as we consider a much-discussed poll, released by Rasmussen on Thursday, that found that “Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.” For the record, here is the primary O.E.D. definition:
A theory or system of social organization based on state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for the common benefit of all members of society; advocacy or practice of such a system, esp. as a political movement. Now also: any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy.
As for Rasmussen’s definition, well, there isn’t one: “The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism.”
‘Socialism’ rises in the polls — but do Americans even know what it means?
But the pollsters did point out an anomaly: “It is interesting to compare the new results to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a ‘free-market economy’ attracts substantially more support than ‘capitalism’ may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.”
So, has the nation really drifted that far to the left, or are we simply struggling with our semantics? Plenty of folks in the blogosphere were happy to answer that question.
snip
In terms of interpreting these results, the numbers certainly aren’t what I expected, and it’s hard to know why respondents answered as they did. Perhaps “capitalism” lost some of its appeal when our economy collapsed. Maybe a lot of people heard the media connect Obama and “socialism,” and since they like the president, they figure socialism can’t be that bad. In a similar vein, if right-wing blowhards like Limbaugh keep screaming that socialism is manifestly evil, there may be some who assume the economic model must have merit.
But I was especially intrigued by the 27% who weren’t sure which was better. Talk about a sign of the times — more than one in four aren’t quite sure whether capitalism or socialism is the superior system.
Mark Thompson at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen feels his fellow conservatives have nobody to blame but themselves. “When you falsely complain that every single thing your opponents try to do is socialism and absurdly hold your bloviating, unpopular selves up as bastions of capitalism, you probably shouldn’t be surprised when people start thinking socialism doesn’t look so bad, and capitalism doesn’t look so good,” he writes. “Let the record also reflect that I, personally, remain firmly with the 53 percent; I just don’t blame the other 47 percent for thinking otherwise.”
Matt Yglesias of Think Progress feels that times have changed enough that “socialism” is “good branding”:
The whole idea is that we should put society first rather than capital, or money. That sounds good! But in the United States we never had a Socialist Party so “socialism” was primarily associated with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which was not at all good. But to people under 30, there’s less of that old resonance. And saying that Obama, who’s popular, is a “socialist” may simply tend to make people have warmer feelings toward the word “socialism.”
The New Republic’s John Judis seems to think the poll’s younger respondents have a better fix on things than the O.E.D.:
According to the poll, 53 percent of Americans think capitalism is preferable to socialism, while 20 percent say socialism is preferable. And among those trustworthy adults under thirty, 37 percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent socialism, and 30 percent are weighing the alternatives. What, you might ask, does this all mean? I don’t think it’s a vote for Soviet-style socialism. While Cold War conservatives did their best to identify socialism, and European social democracy, with Soviet or Cuban communism, the identification doesn’t seem to have survived the Cold War itself.
Instead, what those 30 percent of under-thirties probably mean by “socialism” is a much greater degree of government–and public–control of private corporations and of the market. That would put the United States closer, say, to Sweden, France, or Germany, but would not put it anywhere near the old Soviet Union, which tried to abolish the market itself. Most of all, I imagine, it’s an expression of extreme disillusionment with the magic of the market as preached by Republicans and some Democrats as well.
It’s also, I think, not an incorrect understanding of socialism. As a political philosophy, socialism predated Marx as any reader of “The Communist Manifesto” or of “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” is aware. In America, too, there were Christian socialists like Walter Rauschenbusch, who was an important influence on Martin Luther King, and prairie socialists in Kansas or Oklahoma who never envisioned giving up their farms for socialism. The point that runs through all these many varieties was not collectivism, but instead the subjection of large banks and businesses to social priorities: “people before profits,” as Bill Clinton said in 1992. And that’s what those 20 percent of Americans in the Rasmussen Poll seem to be opting for.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/weekend-opinionator-a-different-sort-of-red-america/
Perhaps the most telling line in the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “socialism” is this one: “The range of application of the term is broad.” That’s something to bear in mind as we consider a much-discussed poll, released by Rasmussen on Thursday, that found that “Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.” For the record, here is the primary O.E.D. definition:
A theory or system of social organization based on state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange for the common benefit of all members of society; advocacy or practice of such a system, esp. as a political movement. Now also: any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy.
As for Rasmussen’s definition, well, there isn’t one: “The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism.”
‘Socialism’ rises in the polls — but do Americans even know what it means?
But the pollsters did point out an anomaly: “It is interesting to compare the new results to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a ‘free-market economy’ attracts substantially more support than ‘capitalism’ may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.”
So, has the nation really drifted that far to the left, or are we simply struggling with our semantics? Plenty of folks in the blogosphere were happy to answer that question.
snip
In terms of interpreting these results, the numbers certainly aren’t what I expected, and it’s hard to know why respondents answered as they did. Perhaps “capitalism” lost some of its appeal when our economy collapsed. Maybe a lot of people heard the media connect Obama and “socialism,” and since they like the president, they figure socialism can’t be that bad. In a similar vein, if right-wing blowhards like Limbaugh keep screaming that socialism is manifestly evil, there may be some who assume the economic model must have merit.
But I was especially intrigued by the 27% who weren’t sure which was better. Talk about a sign of the times — more than one in four aren’t quite sure whether capitalism or socialism is the superior system.
Mark Thompson at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen feels his fellow conservatives have nobody to blame but themselves. “When you falsely complain that every single thing your opponents try to do is socialism and absurdly hold your bloviating, unpopular selves up as bastions of capitalism, you probably shouldn’t be surprised when people start thinking socialism doesn’t look so bad, and capitalism doesn’t look so good,” he writes. “Let the record also reflect that I, personally, remain firmly with the 53 percent; I just don’t blame the other 47 percent for thinking otherwise.”
Matt Yglesias of Think Progress feels that times have changed enough that “socialism” is “good branding”:
The whole idea is that we should put society first rather than capital, or money. That sounds good! But in the United States we never had a Socialist Party so “socialism” was primarily associated with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which was not at all good. But to people under 30, there’s less of that old resonance. And saying that Obama, who’s popular, is a “socialist” may simply tend to make people have warmer feelings toward the word “socialism.”
The New Republic’s John Judis seems to think the poll’s younger respondents have a better fix on things than the O.E.D.:
According to the poll, 53 percent of Americans think capitalism is preferable to socialism, while 20 percent say socialism is preferable. And among those trustworthy adults under thirty, 37 percent prefer capitalism, 33 percent socialism, and 30 percent are weighing the alternatives. What, you might ask, does this all mean? I don’t think it’s a vote for Soviet-style socialism. While Cold War conservatives did their best to identify socialism, and European social democracy, with Soviet or Cuban communism, the identification doesn’t seem to have survived the Cold War itself.
Instead, what those 30 percent of under-thirties probably mean by “socialism” is a much greater degree of government–and public–control of private corporations and of the market. That would put the United States closer, say, to Sweden, France, or Germany, but would not put it anywhere near the old Soviet Union, which tried to abolish the market itself. Most of all, I imagine, it’s an expression of extreme disillusionment with the magic of the market as preached by Republicans and some Democrats as well.
It’s also, I think, not an incorrect understanding of socialism. As a political philosophy, socialism predated Marx as any reader of “The Communist Manifesto” or of “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” is aware. In America, too, there were Christian socialists like Walter Rauschenbusch, who was an important influence on Martin Luther King, and prairie socialists in Kansas or Oklahoma who never envisioned giving up their farms for socialism. The point that runs through all these many varieties was not collectivism, but instead the subjection of large banks and businesses to social priorities: “people before profits,” as Bill Clinton said in 1992. And that’s what those 20 percent of Americans in the Rasmussen Poll seem to be opting for.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/weekend-opinionator-a-different-sort-of-red-america/