Socialism, Capitalism, and Modern Propaganda

I found an article in the New York Times discussing a recent poll that was taken. In this poll, 53% of the American people supported capitalism over socialism, 20% supported socialism, and 27% were unsure. But of the people under 30, only 37% of the people under 30 were in support of capitalism, and 33% were in support of socialism (the rest were unsure). This is a pretty drastic shift in numbers, and there are several possible causes for it. One of the most likely is that to these two groups of people, capitalism and socialism mean very different things. People who lived during the majority of the Cold War were used to socialism being associated with the USSR and saw it as a bad thing. It gained a negative reputation. But people who didn't really live through that time, or at least lived through less of it, never picked up on that same view. To them, it is not necessarily such a bad idea, and to many, it seems like a better option.

The article also states that in an earlier survey 70% of the American people said they preferred a free market economy. While a free market and capitalism are not exactly the same thing, they do tend go hand in hand. Though this poll was taken earlier, it was not much earlier. So this difference is most likely due to the ideas associated with the words and the propaganda behind them. The words "free market economy" appeal to our belief in the freedom to choose, while capitalism tends to be seen as the rich getting richer while everyone else struggles.

These discrepancies show that many people don't understand what we consider basic economic policies. Maybe the problem is that these "basic" policies are not so basic anymore. Terms like socialism and capitalism and even communism have been used in so many different ways to describe so many different policies that they have lost any meaning they originally had. They have simply become modern propaganda. Perhaps new universal definitions or completely new words are needed.

This article provides an interesting opinion of this topic and includes the opinions of many other people as well. So if you are interested in learning more click here.