Blogger Matthew Yglesias (2/9/10), responding to a Des Moines Register poll that found “a third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the ‘tea party’ movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government”:
Thirty-eight percent of Americans have a favorable view of Cuba and 36 percent are favorably disposed toward socialism, but I don’t see anyone writing newspaper articles about how a populist wave of socialism is sweeping the country.
Thirty-six percent favorable toward socialism?
Maybe there’s some hope after all?
Of course, the term means different things to different people, doesn’t it? To me, it means a society that treats and cares for everyone equally, that values people for the contributions they make to the common good, and not how much wealth they accumulate for themselves at others’ expense, and that applies those same principles to every other inhabitant of this planet – and to the goddamn planet itself.
How do we get there from here? Out of my league, but it’s good to know that maybe we have a nice-sized group of folks inclined to try to figure it out, isn’t it?
I agree with DL’s sentiments above but am more cynical about what the “36% favorably disposed towards socialism” means. Unfortunately, I tend to think that a lot of this is people answering a poll the way they think they SHOULD answer it, not the way the really believe. They tend to be more altruisitic in their responses to polls than in their actual actions, including voting. When you look at the presidential voting stats*, you have to go all the way back to 1932 — a major time of despair during the Great Depression — before you find a Socialist party member getting more than 1% of the vote.
(* http://www.usconstitution.net/elections.html)
The vast majority of American voters vote against their interests–which is to say that the vast majority vote for Democrats or Republicans, the twin parties of capitalism.
I disagree that the “pro-socialists” are saying what they think sounds altruistic. Socialism has been disparaged as evil and oppressive–*by definition*–for generations in this country, so it makes no sense to think that there’s some large pool of folks who’re in fact supporters of the capitalist system who nonetheless think they sound better being on record as being keen on socialism.
Em, I was being, perhaps unempirically (if that’s a word) hopeful about the poll. Again, folks have different definitions of “socialism”, and while I view it in a holistic way, others may more narrowly define it as focused on economic equality, which would explain to some degree the relative high favorable rating, given the shit many are knee deep in, wouldn’t it?
It’d be interesting to see the results from a similar question posed a few years earlier, don’t you think?
But even if that’s the case, that’s something to have some hope about, isn’t it? And I hope Aaron’s right – that respondents are expressing more than just a perfunctory endorsement of loosing our “better angels”, and are calling for true political change to confront the injustices of a system based on profit.
Things are going to get worse, aren’t they – so we’ll have a clearer picture of this soon enough, it’d seem.