The Rising Attraction of Socialism

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone poll has found that the percentile of American citizens who favour socialism is 20%, while 53% said capitalism is the better system. This is a very interesting trend, one that we will be watching with great interest. Although 20% is a relative minority in the United States, it is impressive to see this form of Governing garnering such popularity in the U.S.

This deserves a bit of reflection: socialism is antithetical to the American ethos. Socialism is a system which, in a basic interpretation, emphasises the importance of supporting the society as a whole. The Scandinavian countries, Germany, Switzerland, and Canada (as examples) all exhibit successful application of socialist policies; unsurprisingly, these nations give the appearance of being able to more easily soften the harsh blows of the Depression - it remains to be seen how that softening holds up in the future.

As the U.S. is a nation which promotes the individual at the cost of the greater society, socialism is typically regarded as a perversion at best, and a whole-sale attack on "freedom" at worst. For socialism to be supported by 20% of the Citizenry, we can only assume that the 2007 Depression is beginning to make people feel the need for a change.

We can't argue against that need. However, we suspect that people have the idea that President Obama is the man who will bring promised change. As we've said on numerous occasions, we do not think he will deliver the kind of socialism the 20% of Americans are expecting. The United States, since it has been so adamantly opposed to socialism (to the point of its being an outright violation of the Constitution), has no particular framework upon which to build a functional socialist system.

President Obama was elected on the promise of change, and that change is commonly considered to smack of socialism. However, if the continual, hapless bailout-ing of super-huge, super-insolvent banks, and trashy, useless, bankrupt automobile manufacturers is any indication, the Obama Administration's peculiar brand of socialism is the kind previously discovered in the Soviet Union.

It should be said, though, that the Government is merely building upon what previous Administrations have put in place. This is true going back further into American history than most would care to admit. One can point, and rightly so, an accusing finger at President Herbert Hoover as the first major lemon socialist. Lemon socialism is not proper socialism; it is sovietism.