Surprising results in U.S. poll on socialism
Saturday, April 18, 2009
By: Jane Cutter
Help build the Party for Socialism and Liberation
In a recent poll, only 53 percent of Americans said they thought capitalism was better than socialism. On the other hand, 20 percent of those polled preferred socialism, with the remainder undecided.
The preference for socialism is more pronounced among younger people: For those under 30, 33 percent favor socialism while only 37 percent support capitalism. Among people in their 30s, 26 percent favor socialism, while 13 percent of those over 40 years of age favor socialism.
The pollsters did not define the terms “socialism” and “capitalism.”
These results of the Rasmussen Reports poll are encouraging signs, especially considering the general impression workers are given by the mass media and the education system that socialism is dead or does not work. This propaganda machine used the collapse of the Soviet bloc to proclaim capitalism the end-all and be-all of human development, the end of history. Day in and day out, we have been told that there is no alternative to the “free market system” of war, racism and corporate rule.
Once again, the word “socialism” has reappeared in mass culture, in newspapers, magazines and on television. Although the spokespeople of the capitalist class only raise socialism in order to dismiss it, its reapparance in U.S. political discourse is significant. The ruling class knows, better than the working class at this moment, that socialism is the only coherent critique and alternative to the capitalist system.
It makes sense that fewer young people are eager to defend capitalism. On one hand, this can be attributed to the end of the “Cold War” period—high-pitched anti-communism no longer dominates the airwaves as it once did. In addition, unemployment is increasing and is much higher for younger people and people in oppressed communities. For example, for African Americans between the ages of 20 and 24 the March unemployment rate was 23 percent. Unofficially, the rate is much higher.
When the irrational nature of the capitalist system is exposed, many workers begin to question the validity of an economic system that saves a tiny handful of bankers. Many workers already ideologically opposed to capitalism begin to sharpen their opinions against the system and look for ways to fight back.
Two options: capitalism or socialism
Of course, saying that you support socialism over capitalism in response to a poll is not the same as joining the struggle for socialism or belonging to or supporting a revolutionary organization. However, the Rasmussen poll results support the orientation of organizations that openly promote socialism as the solution to capitalist crisis and oppression.
What we have now is an anarchic economic system based on the relentless quest for ever-greater profits for the few, regardless of the social consequences. Because production is premised on the need to make profits for the capitalists, it “makes sense” to lay off workers when products cannot be sold.
Socialism, on the other hand, is based on public ownership of the economy. Economic decisions are made based on human needs and a long-term perspective for sustainability. Socialism is also entirely possible based on the fact that the productive forces of society have reached the stage where it is possible to eliminate poverty and want. It eliminates the cyclical economic crises characteristic of capitalism.
The main impediment to socialism is not workers’ inability to run society. In fact, workers run everything. If they strike, nothing moves. If the capitalists did not come to “work,” however, no one would notice. Although the workers are indispensable to production, all “property rights” belong to the capitalists. The government, police and courts back up their rights while the workers have no rights at all.
Right now, autoworkers are having guns put to their heads by the federal government, which is demanding that they give up their hard-won contract rights to pensions, decent health care and good wages. AIG big shots are given hundreds of millions in bonuses because of the sanctity of “contractual obligations,” but this reverence for contracts is ditched when it comes to contracts that help workers.
Even when the workers form unions, and win contract rights through collective bargaining, the bosses retain the “right” to lay them off. What gives them the right to steal people’s jobs? It is because they “own the property.” The business “belongs” to them. It is their “private property.” Socialism would turn the factories, offices, mines and transportation systems into public property. That is the only way to make workers’ rights permanent.
The need for a workers’ movement
The Party for Socialism and Liberation is building a movement that openly works for the replacement of the capitalist system with a new social order that puts workers in the driver’s seat. The capitalists and their politicians have ruined the economy. Their fortunes are protected while millions of people are plunged into misery or are sitting at the very edge of the abyss.
But there is no automatic link between economic crises and the strengthening of the movement against capitalism. Unless presented with an alternative, many workers will continue to defend the existing system or simply become apathetic about politics. An explicitly socialist movement is needed to channel capitalism’s inevitable discontent into a political force.
If the Rasmussen poll is correct, there are around 45 million people in this country (excluding children) who believe socialism is superior to capitalism. But only a small fraction of this number has ever come into contact with a socialist organization. Perhaps the majority is unaware that such organizations exist. The PSL is premised on the notion that the ideas of socialism can be popularized to these millions, and that our class can be drawn together on a political basis.
We have no mass media outlets or textbook distributors at our disposal, so this can only be accomplished through hard work. It means talking about socialism at our schools and workplaces. It means going into communities where a socialist message has not been heard. It means going toe-to-toe against racism, sexism, anti-gay bigotry, and the other backward ideologies that infect our class. It means proving to our class that socialists are neither crazed monsters nor utopian dreamers—we are humble, hard-working and self-sacrificing community members, fighting to improve workers’ lives in the present and to eradicate oppression.
It also means reviving a broad and powerful socialist media. In 1912, there were five English-language and eight foreign-language socialist daily newspapers in the United States. There were another 262 socialist weeklies in English and 36 foreign-language weeklies. Our class has been inundated with the most vile lies about socialism—we have to develop tools to set the record straight.
It is time to make clear that the economic crisis is a political problem with a political solution. If you are one of the millions who believe socialism is better than capitalism, join us in the struggle to make it a reality.
All active news articles
