Support for Capitalism is on the Wane

Many recent public opinion surveys have shown a fall-off in positive views of Capitalism. One such poll, reported in The Hill, concludes that

Support for capitalism among Americans has dropped within the past 10 years.

In the poll, released [July 8, 2026] by The Wall Street Journal and NORC Research Center, 48 percent of respondents said American capitalism is functioning “very well” or “somewhat well,” while 51 percent said it is functioning “not too well” or “not at all well.”

Socialism has long been part of the American political scene. My father told me he had voted for Norman Thomas every time he ran for President. Prior to his attempts, Eugene Debs was the perennial Socialist candidate, Here is a summary of one of his four attempts, based on a history on the website of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA):

Eugene V. Debs holds the record for the most votes ever received by a socialist candidate in a U.S. presidential election. Running as the nominee for the Socialist Party of America, he garnered 913,693 votes in the 1920 election, despite campaigning from a federal prison cell where he was incarcerated for protesting World War I.

In recent days, the MAGA folks have tried to foist upon the public a false story that the DSA (and other like-minded groups) are terrorists and Communists.

John Ganz has written about “the ‘Little Red Scare’ of the Reagan era“ — history buffs among my readers might enjoy his longer account, but for my present purpose I am interested in only his first three paragraphs. He starts out:

On July 20 2026, the State Department released a report entitled Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism; on Twitter, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, “For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States. The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country. The American people deserve to know."

Ganz comments that “The report specifically targets DSA as a ‘particularly potent illustration’ of these supposed Cuban influence operations.“

What these MAGA creatures willingly ignore is that DSA begins with the word “Democratic” (i.e. anti-authoritarian) and are therefore much farther away from Communism than is MAGA.

As to the Socialist part of DSA, this is not the place to go into great detail, but it is good to keep in mind that Socialism pre-dates Karl Marx, who gladly (in 1875) took up its credo “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs“ — phrases that can be traced back to early Christian beliefs and practices, documented in The Acts of the Apostles.

While the case can be made that once upon a time (in mid-19th century thinking), Communism and Socialism were essentially the same — ownership of the means of production by the State — they have since that time drifted to opposite ends of the Democratic/Authoritarian spectrum. The difference between them now is measured by who controls the decision-making apparatus of the State. Democratic Socialism is just that — economic activity is regulated by a democratic process. Communism, on the other hand, in the personas of such States as Russia and China, has come to mean a State controlled by an authoritarian government.

The alarm bells are ringing. Republicans are becoming scared by the popularity of socialist ideas, which they insist on calling “Communism” — a recent article quotes the Speaker of the House:

“The barbarians are inside the gate — and Democrats are WELCOMING them in,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote on X. “Communism is no longer a far fetched threat. It is here on our SHORES!”

To call DSA adherents or supporters Communists is just plain wrong. Capitalism is closer to Communism, with its concentration of wealth and power into an un-Democratic minority of oligarchs. Which brings us to another topic.

It doesn’t take higher math to decode how unbalanced are income, power, and wealth in this country. In some simple arithmetic displayed in an October 2025 article entitled “If Wealth Was Evenly Distributed Across the US, How Much Money Would Every Person Have?” the answer is $471,465.

Think about that for a minute. Think about the food pantries. Here in Berkshire Counties, I am familiar with two — in Pittsfield and Great Barrington — that serve hundreds of families. A family of four would have a wealth share of $1,885,860. Also think about all those working-class families who (according to many surveys) don’t have enough cash on hand to deal with an unexpected emergency.

This is, of course, a rather silly exercise, since such a redistribution is never going to happen, but it does illustrate the lopsided nature of our wealth (and, by implication, power and incomes). As the article mentioned observes, “two-thirds of America’s wealth is in the bank accounts of the top 10%.“ The article [amid a flurry of advertisements] gives a further analysis of wealth statistics.

Is it even feasible for us to move from Capitalism to Socialism? I think it’s worth a try, though the process may be a long, slow slog, and I’m sure I won’t live to see it happen. My friend Michael Meeropol has made a modest proposal (not of the Jonathan Swift variety): we could start by making small but significant changes, such as public election of corporate boards.

His essay What Would An American Socialism Look Like? deserves more commentary, but that will have to be left for another time.