Why are Americans so afraid?

One reason, I think, is because uniformed Americans don’t really know what socialism is or that it’s not simply one political and economic theory but several. They believe that it sounds bad because they’ve always been told it is bad in our capitalist society. Conversely, capitalism sounds good (or at least better) because they’ve been told it is good.

Many Americans are afraid of socialism but not all. You’ve got to be carefully taught.

I was just watching that clip and it made me think back on those countless posts I read on fluther of people indicating the threat of socialism. Informed or not.

I have missed similar levels of remarks on the risk of serious social dislodgement from unreigned capitalism. From the clip and what i read around it, I feel the balance should be inverse.

And I feel overall fluther is a rather liberal forum

Americans should be afraid. It isn’t just dollars that are being sucked up from the hands of the poor and the middle classes it is power as well. The political process is skewed by powerful interest groups who use their limitless wealth to buy influence and so generate yet more money for themselves.

If America has a purpose it is to be a place of equal opportunity where everyone has an equal chance to make money and an equal voice in the political process. This worthy vision is being stolen from us right before our eyes.

Well, this verse has been on my mind since I encountered the uses of logic – not that I actually understood that particular class, I failed it lamentably:

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

The essay question was to identify the logical fallacies in it. It would be nice to know what they are, does anybody on fluther?

Dear me, this is quite beside the point. What I mean, the verse pretty much encapsulates a certain point of view, shared by quite a number of Americans: work hard and you shall be rewarded (there is a book of that name); I often think that the saying is overdone.

@bea2345 The verse contains a moral fallacy rather than a logical one. Here’s another verse:
“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”

I’m a socialist, but would like to call for a moratorium on videos that contain scary/moody music while attempting to be informative. The asshole in me wants to disagree with this guy just because of the shitty, manipulative music. It’s unnecessary. The facts are disturbing enough. Ok, carry on…

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room I believe you meant ”uninformed Americans”..

@janbb Yes, yes you do!

@whitenoise I think it is because the national news media outlets, especially when it comes to politics, are neither fair or balanced, but filled with competing bias. When a news program is produced more as “info-tainment” than actual “community-service” news (as it was termed in early days of broadcasting) there is more incentive to sensationalize, and to get more eyes for advertisers than than there is to report true news. I believe this can lead to bias when the news is reported in such a way as to make the parent company look good, or to make interests that run counter to those of the parent company look bad, or less favorable.

yes, you may see more than a few more liberal points of view here on fluther, but I have also seen well thought out conservative posts here as well.

Afraid? I don’t think so.
But many Americans know that without private ownership in the means of production there is, in the long run, no production other than a hand-to-mouth production for one’s own needs.
Most people really do not like that idea.

Ignorance, constantly being fed misinformation, lack of travel to countries that are governed under a socialist system and not understanding how they work in practice.
And there are those who truly believe that getting what you need, by yourself, is more important than working cooperatively to see that each person gets what he needs. They resent the fact that people who are not as talented or self driven as they have been should be helped by those who succeeded.

@Yetanotheruser, yep, I made a spelling mitake..

The disproportionate fear of socialism in any form has become a real stumbling block in the way of solving some of the most pernicious problems that have resulted from capitalism run amok.

The bizarre outcomes of the Joseph McCarty era have caused irrational fear of any aspect of any other socio-political system. Societies greater than America have eventually collapsed under their own weight and their unwillingness or inability to adapt to meet the needs of the people. No society will ultimately succeed or prevail by making only the very rich and powerful happy and secure.

America was founded on the basis of at least many of the principles of Democracy. Capitalism can and is now thriving in Communist China today and that country will continue to grow in economic and political power but they are aware and somewhat concerned about growing inequities among different groups (or classes) or people.

Sadly social inequity has grown far worse in America than anyone would have wanted but so intense in the fear of any of the remedies that are readily available because of America’s phobia of anything even resembling Socialism. One political party in particular continues to promote this perspective especially since their political base is almost exclusively people who are or who desire to be among the richest and most powerful, whatever the social cost.

America has grown increasing indebted to the country whose political system and economic growth makes the the most fearful (Communist China). The ongoing fear-mongering about the dangers of Socialism continues to undermine America’s ability to address and meet the social and economic needs of the majority of its people. So many people feel so powerless that they no longer bother to vote.

Just to your north, lies a country that even under its current and increasingly unpopular Conservative government continues to have programs that successfully provide and guarantee universal health care and secure retirement income. While certainly not perfect, by blending Capitalism with humane application of beneficial aspects derived from democratic-socialist ideas, it provides a way of life more economically resilient and more socially just than does America. Most Canadians vote in Federal, Provincial and local elections. The people feel free to question and challenge the policies and programs of the government of the day. In fact, because they vote, they feel it is their right to complain about and actively challenge their governments. A party in power with bad policies can even be tossed out of office forcing a general election to change the make-up of Parliament. Politicians have no guarantee of holding their seats for a fixed term.

In Canada there are always at least 3 or more political parties contesting seats in elections. No political ideology is banned or illegal. There are many fewer deadlocks than in a Congress or Senate where only two parties with often rigid viewpoints are represented. Our Country’s political leader is nothing more than the leader of the party with the largest number of seats in Parliament. That person can’t veto Laws passed by Parliament. In fact, if that party loses a critical vote on major legislation, then the government falls and election is called.
It serves as something of a performance guarantee.

America’s future depends on its ability to prosper economically and to successfully meet many of the needs and concerns of its citizens. If America fails to adapt, then History predicts what happens. Many empires have risen and collapsed before and America is not immune to collapse and failure. It can have a bright and exemplary future, too. The choices make by those in power will determine what fate they will experience.

I have asked myself this same question many times and the only thing I can come up with is that our own government uses fear (not of them but of those “who hate us and want to destroy our way of life”) to control us. After WWII it was communism, now the boogey man is socialism.
Now, why we fall for it every time is another question.

Because capitalism is one of the underpinnings of our society. It gives everyone an equal chance to succeed.

Because socialism results on dependency on the bureaucracy of the state.

Part of the problem is that so many Americans have been brainwashed about the so-called virtues of capitalism. One of the big issues with capitalism that is never discussed here is how it relies on the outrageously unrealistic necessity of infinite economic growth from finite resources. That said, I don’t actually have a better alternative. I’m ideally a socialist, but I also realize that socialism works well in small communities where where everyone knows each other much more successfully than in larger communities where sympathy and empathy is harder to actualize across a population. Socialism is against the “American dream” of “I earned mine”, but as time goes on it becomes more and more obvious that the wealthy elite stifle any real chance of anyone other than them and the extremely few smart enough to slip into their numbers to truly work for anything that is truly tangibly theirs. So many are brainwashed into the old mantra of “work hard, get rewarded” though that not much is going to change until people wake up.

I’m sure my thought process on my post is a really choppy since I’m Fluthering drunk, so please forgive that. I enjoy discussing stuff like this when I’m drunk, even if what I say isn’t always explained very well or very fluidly.

Which variant of socialism and which variant of capitalism are we talking about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Types_of_capitalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism

@amujinx My husband and I are probably in the lower-middle class economically, but we’re not doing badly. Two paid off cars, a small mortgage on our home, less than $2k medical bills, a few other debts, no major credit card debt or store card debts, no kids, in beautiful small-town suburbia.

For us, we do have the American Dream, and we do work hard for it, and to keep it. We certainly aren’t the wealthy elite, but we’ve made some smart decisions in the face of unlucky health with my husband. You can’t blame the government or Bush or Obama for people’s bad decisions.

Before I go, there is not anybody alive today that has ever seen “out of control” capitalism. It has certainly never existed in the US. The closest it ever came to true laissez faire (i.e. not controlled) was the mid to late 19th century, a period of growth and wealth so astonishing and rapid that the rest of the world did not see it coming and did realize it until the two World Wars of the 20th century. ]
The so called US free market capitalism has been controlled by the government since the turn of the 20th century.
In our time, laissez faire (out of control) Capitalism does not exist.
When Capitalism is truely free of control, everybody will have a greater measure of comfort, leisure, products and opportunity than they do today.
The only thing standing in the way of limitless prosperity is State control of the economy.
The only reason some people do not like that idea, is because it puts a demand on them to be their best. So why do people not want to face the challenge of being their absolute best? Is it too hard? Are they weenies? What’s the problem?

I mostly agree with @josie although I do think there is a role for government regulation of markets. It was the Financial Services Modernization Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act passed in the late 90s by the Republican Congress and signed by Clinton that allowed for the unfettered derivatives market in the early 2000s that fueled the bubble and the subsequent crash. It was fuel on the fire. I think government regulation, if wisely done, is a good thing in financial markets.

Have any of you guys, that do not worry about capitalism any idea of the actual statistics?

Wealth distribution in the USA is such that 80% of the population’s households combined have less than a 5% share in the total non- home wealth. Including homes the picture looks a bit better, yet they still don’t own more than 11.1%. Almost half the population have negative wealth. You cannot sustain that a CEO is over 300 times as productive as an avrage employee.

I didn’t want to start a discussion on defining capitalism and socialism. These statistics just truly make me wonder why people are worried so much about socialism, when it seems that socialism is millions of miles away from reality and the American form of capitalism makes the majority of its population lose out?

Class__________ Mean income ______ Mean worth ________ non-home wealth
Top 1% ___ $ 1,318,200_ 17.6% _ $_ 16,439,400 _ 35.5% _ $ 15,171,600 _ 42.1%
Top 20 %__ $ _ 226,200_ 60.4% _ $__ 2,061,600 _ 88.9% _ $_ 1,719,800 _ 95.4%
60%-80%__ $ __ 72,000_ 19.2% _ $ ___ 216,900 __ 9.4% _ $ __ 100,700 __ 5.6%
40%-60%__ $ __ 41,700_ 11.1% _ $ ____ 61,000 __ 2.6% _ $ ___ 12,200 __ 0.7%
Bott 40%__ $ __ 17,300__ 9.2% _ $ __ – 10,600_ – 0.9% _ $__ – 14,800 __ -1.6%

sources:
Wolff, E. N. (2012). The Asset Price Meltdown and the Wealth of the Middle Class. New York: New York University.

Domhoff, G. William (2012). Wealth, Income, and Power. Santa Cruz: University of Santa Cruz http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

The American view of capitalism has me wondering about some things. Why, for example, did the cellphone industry not have pre- rather than post-paid service from the start? Our friends and relatives in the US have told us some horror stories of the service. Is it this belief in capitalism that has the customer so exploited? I am told that a basic post-paid contract can be as much as $50.00 per month, whle pay as you go is very expensive – “the minutes just disappear,” a relative told me. In pre-paid service, you buy units as you need them. Post-paid has you at the mercy of the supplier. In Trinidad and Tobago, most people rejected the post-paid service. One of its features was that you had to pay for received calls. For months, my husband kept his cell in a drawer and refused to answer when it rang.

@bea2345 Exploited? The American customer has to learn to be smart and savvy instead of suckers for every scam known to exist, learn what they need and what they don’t need.

It’s not up to government, or companies or real estate bankers to tell us what we’re buying. We have brains and if we cannot research things then it’s pretty much on us for being ignorant.

-My husband and I had cell phones through T-Mobile, it got expensive, we switched to pre-pay, it’s common-sense.
-When we were approved for a big home loan, we bought a house for under $100k, again common-sense.

It does help if you @KNOWITALL :-)

@KNOWITALL – It’s not up to government, or companies or real estate bankers to tell us what we’re buying. – nor is it up to companies or real estate bankers to sell services we do not need, like overpriced cell packages and mortgages for more than a property is worth.

I’m a proponent of personal responsibility, which I know is unpopular here on fluther and in America, but it’s working pretty good for me. :)

We have to be smart enough to say no to things we don’t need, we can’t rack up credit card debt, lose our job and blame everyone else for what we did to our own life. But that’s just my opinion.

Personal responsability shouldn’t equal “their own fault”.

I wouldn’t be talking about the responsibity of people for their own lives. We agree there. I am worried about an unlevel playing field that makes the game unfair to begin with.

This thread had me thinking about Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, who died last week. Once he was labelled socialist, the U.S. press did not take him seriously. Yet in the fourteen years of his presidency, Venezuela moved from being one of the most unequal economies in this hemisphere to one more approaching the American ideal. This could not have happened if the Chavista government had not made it happen. Of course the wealthy Venezuelans hated him. Nobody likes having his toys taken away, even if somebody else needs them. Seen in this light, the expropriation of land, the nationalization of the oil companies, was almost a given. To make systems work for the poor, to relieve, and prevent, poverty, is a function of governance. The saying, “The poor you have with you always” is one of the few times that Jesus employed sarcasm as a debating tool. Among the ancient Jews, to allow poverty when you could relieve it was a sin.

@bea2345
That’s an interesting observation.

@bea2345 Hugo Chavez Rotten Legacy

@rarebear, I would consider the source. While The Economist is not what I’d call radically conservative, I still think it puts forward a capitalist point of view; not necessarily a bad thing, but still wary (scared?) of any “transfer of wealth”.

@Yetanotheruser The Economist endorsed Obama.

Just burn your fuckin TVs.

@Espiritus_Corvus

Why?

@whitenoise Because that is the main source of disinformation and paranoia. The absence of interactivity makes watching TV hypnotic. Many studies, of which I am not about to hunt down for you this morning, indicate that people feel they have more control over their own lives, are less insecure, more productive, and feel more creative after only 90 days without watching TV. I think most people, after a year without it, will never go back.

@Espiritus_Corvus

i tend to agree to a certain level. More precisely… the huge amount of customer tailored news channels.

This huge supply allows people to focus on news casts that confirm their personal beliefs. It is even worse… this huge supply forces people to select their information sources. What sources do you think people wiil choose during that selection? Right… the media that they agree with.

Somewhat diverging… don’t you think the internet is a bigger risk?

No. Not if one is inquisitive, which most humans naturally are if left to their own devices. In less than ten minutes of surfing, one can research a subject on the net sourcing reference material, related news items, and get a spectrum of opinions on it from professors, laypersons, locals, etc., view discussions and videos, and be much more informed on any given subject than from a lifetime of randomTV watching. And then there is commercial-free entertainment and niche interests. How often do people sit and watch something on TV and think to themselves, “WTF am I watching this shit for?” but sit and watch it anyway? I don’t think this happens very often on then net. Not while there is a right click button on the mouse and billions of petaboxes of world-wide content. I also believe curiousity begets more curiousity.

That is true… I am however afraid, as I see on this forum as well, every now and then, that people are masters in only filtering that information out that actually confirms their whatever silly belief.

This doesn’t hold true of you and me, of course.

Buck up, my friend. Most people are better than that.

Many are not. It’s called confirmation bias.

Many are as well… That’s true.

There is always hope.

Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski ([kɔˈʐɨpski]) (July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics. Korzybski’s work argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and by the structure of language.

Korzybski thought that people do not have access to direct knowledge of reality; rather they have access to perceptions and to a set of beliefs which human society has confused with direct knowledge of reality. Korzybski is remembered as the author of the dictum: “The map is not the territory”. ~Wikipedia

I think terms such as Socialism and Capitalism have become so bent, so abstract that none of us are in agreement with the meaning of these terms anymore and therefore we are unable to have a reasonable discussion concerning them. It is as if we are all speaking different languages. I have some practical experience in what became Socialism in Poland before Perestroika under the Soviet regime. It wasn’t pretty, but neither was Stalin and his political progeny or his ideas on Socialism. The government was corrupt on every level.

I have also spent time in Haiti under entrenched, late-stage, or uncontrolled “Laissez-faire” Capitalism as suggested here by @Josie. It wasn’t pretty either and the government was corrupt on every level (We couldn’t even get anesthetics into the country after the earthquake until the Assistant UN Envoy to Haiti, Paul Farmer, located the proper official to bribe). The history of Haiti is quite enlightening – how a place goes from the richest colony in the Caribbean to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, now nearly depleted of its riches in natural resources. It is a good lesson to all capitalists who believe in democracy and its benefits and how fragile are democracies under runaway capitalism.

Today I am visitor in the tiny Caribbean Republic of Dominica, an island approximately 30 miles long by 15 miles wide, 365 rivers and streams, elevations from sea level to 1 mile high, heavily forested, rich in geothermal energy potential, population of about 70,000 citizens, under its own Parliamentary Democracy. At the moment. In the recent past, Dominica has experienced the forceful resignation of a Prime Minister under mass protests and political street violence in 1979, a coup attempt in 1980 by their own defense forces, and another coup attempt by American KKK members, a Toronto mafia don, South African financiers, and a former Dominican Prime Minister to turn this place into a haven for drug transshipment, gambling, prostitution, and gun running (kinda like a big laissez-fare Las Vegas) under Operation Red Dog which was thankfully thwarted by the US government in 1981. It is a fragile democracy, where local politics is indiscernible from national politics because of the size of the island and its population. In many ways, it is a microcosm of all democracies, no matter what their size.

This volcanic island is unique in the Caribbean as that it is self-sufficient in potable water, and could be self-sufficient in energy – renewable energy. It could be the richest nation in the Caribbean basin independent of funds from the IMF, and exploitation by Russia, Cuba, China, Japan, US, and Venezuela. This is, I’m sure is what every Dominican wants. But it this not the case. A few years ago a Prime Minister in league with the head of the central bank LEGALLY sold the country’s geothermal rights to a Russian billionaire living in Monaco. For energy, the same men made a deal with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and now the country imports 148,000 barrels of crude and refined oil per day to keep the lamps lit for which they increase their national debt annually (I don’t believe there was any ideology involved – just greed). This satisfies 85% of their energy needs, but is damaging to this ecotourist island’s near-pristine environment and it is unnecessary. Less than 1% of energy is provided by wind and geothermal sources. The rest of their energy is hydroelectric, also damaging to the environment and unnecessary. The people, through their democracy, are trying to undo this injustice, but it takes time. This is only one of many examples of this country’s struggle to find a balance between responsible government and runaway, mafia-style capitalism like @DrLawrence describes above.

End-stage, laissez-fare capitalism is much like the board game of Monopoly. In the end, one guy, or small group of backers, holds all the wealth and it doesn’t resemble capitalism at all. Just like socialism under the Soviets didn’t resemble Marx’s ideal. A strong democratic government where the people and their representatives, by well-enforced laws and regulations, are always more powerful than the entities that reside within it is necessary for both to exist in harmony. The people here know this. And they know it is a constant struggle to maintain the balance. It requires vigilance. Right now, everything is going smoothly, but it can change overnight.

As an end note, I have a lot of Dominican friends and they don’t seem to exhibit the defensive boasting and paranoia (others hate us because of our success and want to destroy us) that is found rampant in American society. They don’t seem to hate Russians or the US, or anybody else. They know that the worst comes from within. Americans should take a close look at this pretty little emerald jewel in the Caribbean—this fragile little democracy—and learn from it.

@marinelife :

Ask yourselves if it is true that under the US capitalist system, everyone is given a equal change to succeed.

Compare for example two young people of above average intelligence and excellent grades in high school.

One comes from a white skinned family, with a higher than average combined income. Both parents were university educated and are still well connected with their peers from University. In the home a fairly high quality of American English is spoken and the students have akways been encouraged while growing up to get high grades so they can expect to be admitted to the prestigious college attended by the parents. Everyone in the family has full access to medical care as a result of the employee benefits the parents have from where they work.In the home, there are several computers and other top-end communication devices.

The other student’s parents did well in school in El Salvador. They are now US citizens, Both parents work; one in auto repairs and the other in retail sales. While English is spoken in the home, the parents speak with a strong Spanish accent and to some extend so does the student. To look at the student, one can immediately tell they come from a Hispanic heritage.
On the combined family income, they manage to pay for urgent medical attention but not for preventative care. University tuitions are way beyond the family’s financial means. The student has always worked par-time during school and full time during summer breaks. Even with that hard work, tuition and books far exceed the student’s earnings. This student rides public transit to get to work. If they can go to university, it will be at a local state or community college so the student can continue to live it the parent’s home. Without private health insurance, if either parent got injured or sick at work, the family would be in serious trouble.

Do these two students from hard working American family have an equal opportunity to get a high level of education they might need for the careers they would like to pursue? Assuming they do graduate from college, will they have an equal chance to get a great job with opportunities for advancement. Both students are highly motivated and intelligent.

Living under the deal capitalist American way of life, do they realistically have the same likelihood of becoming successful and earning an above average income?
What would happen to either student if someone in their family became disabled or lost their live in a tragic car crash?

Which student is more likely to join the military to guaranteed themselves a career if they are ultimately discharged after multiple tours of service in Iraq or Afghanistan or any other war in which the country might find themselves involved?

Do these two students really have an equal opportunity to make the most of their above average intelligence and high level of motivation? If you answer no or not really, then why is that the case?