Gallup recently conducted a poll asking Americans how they feel about different terms such as “big business”, “small business”, and “federal government” etc. The terms that Americans liked most are “small business”, “free enterprise”, and “entrepreneurs” with 95, 86, and 84 percent of Americans feeling positively about the terms respectively. Given that a relatively meager 61 percent of Americans have positive feeling about “capitalism” libertarians would likely be best served by talking about the free enterprise system or the free market rather than capitalism. I’m not exactly sure why people view capitalism so much more negatively than free enterprise, but my hypothesis is that capitalism is associated with the current American “crony capitalist” system where the government gives massive subsidies, bailouts and other privileges to large corporations. That explanation would also go some way in explaining Americans’ split opinions on “big business” with 49 percent holding positive feelings and 49 percent holding negative feelings.
Furthermore, while I am heartened that a majority of Americans have negative feelings toward the federal government, I’m alarmed that 36 percent of the people in this country feel positively about “socialism”. I am certain, however, that when most Americans hear the term “socialism” they do not think of the revolutionary socialism of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao but the social democracies of Europe…at least I hope so. But most confounding of all is that 20 percent of self-described conservatives like socialism. Now, there are a few conservatives who do actually admire European style welfare states, but very few, so I’m willing to bet that this means that 19 percent of conservatives either don’t know socialism is or they don’t know what conservatism is. Either way, it’s pretty entertaining.
Link via Hit and Run.
