Wednesday, October 31, 2018

The Rise of 'Socialism': The People Who Love It Can't Define It Correctly

In a poll this summer, Democrats by a 10-point margin said they prefer socialism to capitalism.

Socialism is traditionally defined as the government owning the means of production, and it just as traditionally leads to authoritarianism.

As the Danish prime minister noted in a speech at Harvard in 2015: "Some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."

If there's any good news about the increasing allure of socialism in the United States, it is that the problem stems less from a failure to consider the dangers of centralized power than from basic ignorance.

In September, Gallup asked Americans to define "Socialism." The most popular response was "Equality".

Six percent defined socialism as "Talking to people" or "Being social," which means 4 out of 10 Americans think socialism is just some form of making nice.

That's a big switch from 1949, when Gallup found that respondents identified socialism as state control of the economy over "Equality" by a three-to-one margin.


https://www.weeklystandard.com/tony-mecia/the-rise-of-socialism-the-people-who-love-it-cant-define-it-correctly

No comments: