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Regardless of your actual views on the systems, as a non-american it's absolutely insane that so many people are incapable of thinking of one positive of a socialist economic system. I wouldn't describe myself as either a socialist or a capatalist, but with just a cursory ponder I can think of several benefits to both. The complete inability for critical thinking is quite saddening, and quite worrying considering america's influence.
I'm convinced most Americans have no idea what socialism means, or even what capitalism means.
I'm convinced the vast majority of people use the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" to mean whatever is convenient in the argument they are having.

Capitalism and socialism are about ownership of the means of production.

While most economies are mixed. Nations typically associated with "socialism" like Sweden and Denmark are mostly capitalist. Nations like Bolivia and Venezuela are the ones that are actually mostly socialist.

It's entirely possible to have a highly redistributive capitalist country, with a strong social safety net. It's also entirely possible to have a socialist country with extreme wealth inequality and a terrible social safety net. It just depends on how things are structured.

The other reply certainly supports this view
What I think is "absolutely insane" is how oblivious of recent history people are. Up until the 1980s half of Europe was socialist, and it is at that time that China started moving away from a socialist economy, too. It was abandoned everywhere.
Words in American politics have lost their original meaning. Words in American politics mean whatever the national committee say they mean for that week.

Communism means everyone who opposes Trump.

Freedom means parroting whatever nonsense Trump says today.

Socialism means everyone who rejects the current corporate oligarchs.

The problem in the US, is that historically all flavors of socialism have been painted the same way as communism. So in the end it has been capitalism vs socialism, no room in the middle.

And whenever countries with social democratic systems, or in general countries with strong socialist influences are presented to the public, the billionaire-pundits scramble to downplay their living standards.

Take this world cup, for example. You have Fox news pundits tripping over themselves to tell the audience that Europeans don't have AC, don't get ice with their drinks, or whatever.

The funny part is that the era commonly referred to as "the golden age of capitalism" (post New Deal, post WWII) in the US is the period of time where it was the most "socialist".
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

— John Steinbeck, still as relevant as ever

>> “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

Steinbeck never said or wrote that, as far as I can tell.

He did write a passage that maybe was paraphrased that way, but let's be clear here, he was talking about Communism, and revolutionary Communism, not socialism:

"Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: “After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?” Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picnickers on her property.

I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves."

Steinbeck was a communist in the 1930s, he belonged to a communist organization and wrote for a communist publication. He wrote the above passage in the 1960s looking back on that period. To me it seems like he is trying to minimize his participation in revolutionary communism, as one would naturally do in the 1960s. Maybe I'm overly skeptical and he just grew up.

He did not write or say what you quoted him as saying.

Looks like the definition of "proletarian" is a member of "the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live". I did that for some time, retired now. Don't know what about that category of person means they are expected to support communism.

I don't.

In a lot of ways, the same happened in the Soviet Union. The poor farmers were never socialists. Socialism was imposed on them by upper-middle-class intellectuals.

The poor farmers wanted to stop being serfs, but only so that they could own their own land. That wouldn't make them quite millionaires, but they imagined that they'd be comfortably-well-off. (Today, a millionaire is not much more than comfortably-well-off, but in Steinbeck's time it put you in Jay Gatsby territory.)

So the proper socialist revolution never happened. The workers never got control of the means of production. It just passed from an obscenely-wealthy autocrat to a bunch of oligarchs, who promptly made themselves wealthy.

It does seem to be pretty good evidence that the socialist revolution is never coming. Even if it's in everybody's best interest on paper, it's too hard to get them all on the same page. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma: there are just too many reasons for people to conclude that their short-term interest outweighs the global long-term interest.

Most such discussion suffer from an inadequate definition of what is meant by "socialism" vs what is meant by "capitalism". The most important aspect to me is ownership / control of the means of production, and I think there are very interesting compromises to be had in between extremes. What I mean: imagine if it was normal for companies to pay out a large part of their earnings to their employees. This does exist, of course, in some of the best companies, but is not widely spread and even when in place, the share of profit going to the employees is too small. Another share could still go to shareholders that "didn't work" for the profit to incentivize investments. Seems like a small change that could have a huge impact on wealth distribution.
I think I like the suggestion, but it’s firmly on the capitalism end of the spectrum. Profit sharing is one of the incentives I look at when looking for a job. Not too far off from employee stock programs or matching 401k with company stock.

If you had suggested the “public” get a share of the profits then you start touching socialism but then I’d also hate the suggestion.

I’d like to understand how they defined capitalism vs free enterprise for the poll participants.

I’m encouraged by parts of the poll, especially independents responses. I think a good many Americans perceive benefits to some degree of socialism ( ie healthcare ), but without going overboard.

As I understand it, free enterprise is regulated environment to prevent monopolies, capitalism is unregulated which results in monopolies and kills free enterprise.
It's not always clear who controls the means of production. It certainly isn't always the people who formally is supposed to - whether we're talking about a "capitalist" or "socialist" government.
Reality check: the workers never control the means of production. Not even in communist states, not even in China. On paper? Sure, paper is forgiving. But the oligarchy, either by party or by money, does what they want. The only enclaves where the workers own it is in small cooperatives (mostly insignificant).
Socialism is only for the super-duper rich, the 0.001%. Too big to fail, trickle down economics and all that.

Capitalism for the poor, you gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps. If you ain't successful, you aren't working hard enough.

Too Big To Jail, official US attorney general position, never forget:

> Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday sought to walk back comments that some financial institutions may be too large to prosecute, telling lawmakers at a lively Capitol Hill hearing that no single bank is above the law.

> In a March appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder testified that big banks’ clout “has an inhibiting impact” on prosecutions. As he explained: I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult to prosecute them

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/eric-holder-backt...

Makes me wonder how many of the complaints about capitalism are really about corruption, and if people would have a more favorable view of it if we didn't have this system of interlocking directorships, revolving public/private appointments, regulatory capture, and backroom handshakes between government and corporations that seems to shut many Americans out of the capitalist wealth-creation engine.
I agree with the sentiment, but that's really about welfare, not socialism. You can still have welfare in a state where control of the means of production is in a few, private hands. As I recall some big ideologues of capitalism wanted that, or at least took it for granted that we would have to have it for the system to be stable.
I don't like getting wrapped up in lexicography, but any meaningful definition of socialism has to include government ownership of the means of production. What the super-rich want is government protection for them, but they don't want to government taking over their property. So it confuses the issue to call it "socialism".

It's certainly the case that the rich want protections that they deny everybody else, in ways that run counter to the dictates of capitalism. But it's not "socialism". It's just really bad capitalism.

I live in SF and the biggest issue I see regularly with this debate is that most Americans seem to be conflating "capitalism" with various things that aren't directly related.

First, I see Americans regularly conflating "socialism" to "wealth redistribution" and "capitalism" to "no taxes."

Second, I see many folks conflating high-trust cooperation to "socialism" and low-trust hostility to "capitalism."

Ultimately, capitalism and socialism is about who owns the means of production. While most economies are mixed, the countries we point to as socialism aren't actually socialist. They're just redistributive, high-trust capitalism. Sweden, Denmark, and Germany are predominantly capitalist countries. Bolivia and Venezuela are predominantly socialist countries.

The caveat for anyone outside of the United States is that what they call "socialism" is really just capitalism with a welfare state.
Which the US has anyway, albeit in a patchier form than other countries, and with welfare handed out more to corporations and "sponsors" than individuals.
Who is they? Did the poll define it like that or are you projecting into the minds of the populace?
That’s what some politicians here mean when they say it. The poll seems to indicate pretty negative results for “socialism,” which seems less likely if people were just interpreting it as capitalism+safetynet, right?
> 81% viewing free enterprise positively, compared with 54% for capitalism and 39% for socialism

> capitalism is much more likely than free enterprise to be associated with unequal distribution of wealth.

This is why the terms "capitalism" and "socialism" are largely useless in political debates, and people are mostly talking past each other.

When you look specifically at what Americans like about socialism, it's health care, education, welfare, and equality. I don't think many people want central planning of the entire economy, which is why critics of socialism raising the bogeyman of the USSR are missing the point.

Capitalism has a generational problem. Gen Z and Gen Alpha growing up in an age of austerity while wealth inequality grows out of control will have, and arguably is having, profound effects on just about everything
Branding with historical bad words and other propaganda can't put a lid on how power to influence our future in a meaningful way is concentrating into fewer and fewer hands.
We are so far to the 'right' now, that even getting a salary is socialism because it is taking money from those poor billionaires that could use that money to invest and create more jobs.
some of these media outlets manipulate public opinion.

majority of the public can't differentiate between commerce & capitalism. nor socialism vs 'free markets'.

the non-gullible people know it's not just about this vs that - but ultimately who controls what. ideally you want a system where no individual player or a few players can tip the system.

the Chinese system is probably the closest to that - but then the CCP exists :( . a large player that can tip the scales. but for the rest of the businesses - it's dog eat dog - the better ones that survive are suited to serve the population while aligned to the goals of the population for a good part.

> the Chinese system is probably the closest to that - but then the CCP exists :( . a large player that can tip the scales. but for the rest of the businesses - it's dog eat dog - the better ones that survive are suited to serve the population while aligned to the goals of the population for a good part.

The reason the Chinese system works the way it does is precisely because the CPC exists.

> the non-gullible people know it's not just about this vs that - but ultimately who controls what. ideally you want a system where no individual player or a few players can tip the system.

forgive me for asking but even if I accept China is a real democracy, how is that meaningfully different from "no individual player or a few players can tip the system". isn't Xi and the other party members capable of doing exactly this?

i can even agree that Xi was voted in by the people but that doesn't change the point.

Socialism is when the government does stuff
All governments do stuff. Usually it's passing and enforcing laws. What set of principals stands (or lurks) behind these laws - that's where the meat of the matter is.
And if does a whole lot of stuff, then it's communism.
The capitalism vs socialism debate was settled in the 1980s, and so was the value of free enterprise. It is odd that the debate should keep being brought up...

However, the terms should also be clearly defined in such poll because indeed the average person may have their own understanding, not least in the US. Judging by the comments even people on HN have no understanding of "socialism" and are trying to shoehorn an idealist view of "a better society" into the term, or they cannot accept that "socialism" does not work.

People really need to give up the cold war, the failures of "end of history" thinking are directly related to all of the economic problems we have today.

We could do - have done - much worse than implementing some good sense social safety net measures. Especially as people advocate for AI and using it to replace/disempower employees.

The 1980s was almost 50 years ago, and history continues to move.

50 years before the 1980s, during the Great Depression, the narrative was the opposite. The Soviet Union was invincible with a growing economy while every capitalist country on earth had been plunged into a devastating depression. Adopting social programs was the only way capitalism survived that decade at all.

In the 1930s, "socialism" won. In the 1980s, "capitalism" won. Scare quotes because neither was really the thing. Something else is going to win in the 2030s. The story is never over, despite what Francis Fukuyama would have you believe.

The US would be the biggest recipient of socialism right now yet they come from 50 years of propaganda against it; it's so ingrained in their minds that even someone in the most exploited working class would dismiss the idea as "communists want to steal your money1!1!1".
What does would be mean?
30 years ago this sounded like lunacy, now its becoming apparent it was prophecy:

capitalism and artificial intelligence are the same thing