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John Ambrosavage © 2006
What Color Is Your -Ism?
American reactions to the words "socialism" and "capitalism" are changing; too bad we don't have either anymore
by Doug Collins
All the rhetoric earlier this year about Obama's alleged "socialism" may have backfired against Tea Partiers. According to recent polls, the term "socialism" is gaining clout among Americans.
A Pew poll published in May found that 29% of Americans view "socialism" in a positive light, whereas a Gallup Poll, also from this year, found that an astonishing 37% of Americans view "socialism" as superior to "capitalism."
Both polls found that slightly more than half of Americans view capitalism in a positive light. However, in the Pew poll the age group 18-30 was evenly divided between the terms, with 43% viewing socialism as superior and 43% viewing capitalism as superior.
I suppose one reason for this shift is that the Cold War is long behind us and even unfamiliar to young adults. To confound matters, socialist China is now obviously more capitalist than the US!
However, perhaps there's a second reason: a fair number of Americans desperate for affordable health insurance have heard the word "socialism" derisively equated with the Obama health care initiative, and have thus decided that socialism must be a good thing. This despite the fact that the final health care package was basically written by the insurance industry.
If people suffer from superficiality, polls of people are even worse. Polls, such as those cited above, measure people's immediate reactions to a particular hot-button word, without defining the word. One person thinks "socialism" means more food stamps, another thinks it means public ownership of General Motors, another thinks it means bailing out the banks, another thinks it means free colonoscopies for all. What does it really mean?
And if the majority of Americans still believe capitalism is better, then why don't we have it here in the US anymore? I only know one person here who actually makes a living by producing and selling his own widgets, and he's an immigrant. Seems to me that we've entered a new stage of economy: corporatism, a racket in which large organizations both create and control markets by using the most effective means of propaganda: advertising and media manipulation.
John Ambrosavage © 2000
Even trillions of dollars of public money are shifted to the control of the corporatists, thanks to the extra influence of campaign donations and the promise to key public officials of "revolving-door" jobs in the private sector.
The term "corporatism" accurately sums up the nature of both our current healthcare system and the next one to come. But if you polled today's public about their views on corporatism, the response might be 99% "huh?".
Further info on the socialism/capitalism poll results can be found at www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/18-3.
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