The Virtues of Discontent
In a Gallup poll released this week, American support for capitalism reached its lowest point since the survey began, with only 54% having a positive view, while 39% express some support for socialism. The poll does break heavily on partisan lines, with 42% of registered Democrats having a favorable view compared with 74% of Republicans. There is also clear evidence that younger people have a relatively dim view of capitalism, which expressed itself in the outpouring of young voters for Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primaries and for Zohran Mamdani in the New York Democratic mayoral primary in June of this year. One Reddit board had a slew of comments about capitalism being “a system for the rich and the few,” nicely encapsulating the negative take.
Of course, it’s not entirely clear what people have in mind when they think of “capitalism” and “socialism.” According to a Pew survey in 2022, 36% of adults said capitalism “gives all people an equal opportunity to be successful.” Meanwhile, 62% of Republicans said socialism restricts economic freedom, while 56% of Democrats believed that socialism “meets people’s basic needs.”
It’s easy to make this a simple partisan divide, but capitalism in the United States is hardly a pure free market. With Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, publicly financed education, food stamps, veterans’ healthcare, and subsidies for crops, the United States is more an amalgam of capitalism and socialism than a purely capitalist society. The idea of government-funded safety nets arose during the Great Depression and gathered steam in Western democracies after World War II. Ironically, one of the reasons was to head off the growing popularity of socialism in Europe. The creation of the National Health Service in Great Britain, for instance, was grounded in the belief that a capitalist society should socialize certain public goods for universal benefit. Aneurin Bevan, a leading Labour politician and government minister, argued repeatedly and forcefully that health services were not compatible with a system oriented only toward individual profit maximization, and that a socialized health system was the only moral answer in a capitalist society.
While there was less palpable fear of socialism in the United States (though there was certainly McCarthyite fear of communism from the late 1940s through the 1950s), the utopian impulse of the 1960s Great Society programs meant to eradicate poverty led to a vast expansion of the federal government. These programs were more than simply redistributive and, in many ways, mimicked the socialist systems that were supposed to be antithetical to capitalism.
So, the current framing of the question of socialism versus capitalism is historically myopic. When the right fulminates that socialism is a step towards dictatorship and autocracy and point to contemporary Venezuela or to the communist and fascist dictatorships of the 1930s, they are collapsing a wide spectrum into its most extreme end point. When the left rails against the unfair and unjust income distribution and the winner-take-all brutalism of contemporary capitalism and its mantra of maximizing shareholder value, they overlook just how socialist much of our contemporary capitalist system already is.
And yet, there is something encouraging about the very fact of this debate. It reflects a churning discontent with the status quo, but it is discontent predicated on the belief that society can be better, that the economic system can provide greater rewards to a greater number and that constructive change is possible. Yes, many of those who express discontent with capitalism and support of socialism don’t know the history of either and don’t recognize the sui generis nature of society today – that we live in a de facto blended system already. But they also recognize that the promise of a society where basic needs are met without insecurity remains elusive, and the goal of achieving it remains powerfully attractive. I’d much rather live in a society that strives for that than one where most people don’t even believe that it’s possible or worth it.
The oft-maligned Burning Man festival ended last week, and I was there. It is easy enough to deride the hypocrisy of a festival in the desert that abjures commerce yet costs tens of millions of dollars to create (as much as $70 million for 2025). And yet, it embodies that same blending of naked capitalism and unbridled utopianism, with a commitment to “gift giving” and “decommodification” even as it requires considerable money. The emphasis on community and caregiving is real nonetheless, just as the striving for a more equitable society remains real in the heart of many in capitalist countries – very much including the United States. Humans are messy mixes of contradictory impulses, coexisting in one body without canceling each other out. Moral purity is rare, and often unpleasant when embodied by those with power. Moral complexity may frustrate the desire for neat black-and-white categories, but it more honestly reflects the human condition.
In that sense, the capitalism versus socialism brouhaha that has so agitated people over the past century is a false binary. Most societies are neither one nor the other, and most today skew capitalist with some socialist notes. The belief that a more just social and economic order is possible and has yet to manifest can be a source of anger and despair, but it can be a passionate spur to create a better world. And in the end, the labels do more to obscure and distract and divide. As for me, I celebrate the dissatisfaction as a sign that apathy does not rule, and that people remain engaged in the ongoing experiment to create a world of less friction and more balance.
Less socialism in government would be required if capitalism is regulated and enforced to limit monopolies, require truth in labeling, require polluters to pay, allow unions, limit CEO pay to something reasonable, cap stock buybacks, challenge antisocial charters, and get money out of elections and government (bribes from lobbiests, unfair stock purchasing, and anything bitcoin). Socialist tools would be unnecessary if capitalists played fair.
I very much agree that the socialism v. capitalism argument is a false binary. I like to consider entities from a "best host" perspective. I think we are all pretty pleased that our government maintains the roads; is that socialism? I also think we are content with the reality that corporations manage most of our communications (capitalism). There is also a role for NGO's: land trusts, art institutions and advocacy organizations come to mind. I think where we have gone wrong is when we label entities and use those labels as indictments.