Why is capitalism so "popular" when it totally sucks?

[AinoAnarchist]

Ive been wondering, why do people choose capitalism knowing even though it sucks?

Or is it because they dont know the other political theories?

I was just wondering <.<

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

It makes a few people extremely rich and powerful, while the rest are duped into thinking they could be that rich too one day..or something

[Leftsolidarity]

We don't choose capitalism. It is enforced and upheld by a powerful ruling class.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

We don't choose capitalism. It is enforced and upheld by a powerful ruling class.

^This, no one "chooses capitalism," it's shoved down your throat from birth by the state and it's purse fillers. There is money to be made and those at the top wouldn't want that precious gravy train to stop flowing so all efforts are made politically, economically and culturally to support said system.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Propaganda and misinformation put out by the Ruling Class to disinform people about what socialism actually is are the primary culprits, added to the mistakes made by Stalin,Mao and company usually give people a off-kilter analysis.

[Leftsolidarity]

Also, there was some survey (I don't know where to find it again, you could probably google it) which found that a very large percentage of the US population responds favorable to the word "socialism". What "socialism" actually means to them, though, is unknown.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Also, there was some survey (I don't know where to find it again, you could probably google it) which found that a very large percentage of the US population responds favorable to the word "socialism". What "socialism" actually means to them, though, is unknown.

What it means to them is what Obama represents, so it isn't by any means actual socialism.Yet,this study shows signs that the public is no longer afraid to use the word socialism.I think this is a good opportunity to inform them on revolutionary socialism.

[Tim Cornelis]

Also, there was some survey (I don't know where to find it again, you could probably google it) which found that a very large percentage of the US population responds favorable to the word "socialism". What "socialism" actually means to them, though, is unknown.


The poll also found that adults over 40 strongly favored capitalism, with just 13% of this age group believing that socialism is the superior system. Meanwhile, adults under 30 are about evenly divided (37% capitalism, 33% socialism, 30% undecided).

Republicans believed capitalism is better than socialism by an 11 to 1 margin. Democrats were more closely divided- 39% preferred capitalism and 30% choose socialism. Investors favored capitalism by a 5 to 1 margin.

They thus equate socialism with social capitalism.

A more significant poll is this:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46684000/gif/_46684877_world_service_captial_466.gif

In this poll it is still unclear what "a different economic system" means as in France people think Hollande will implement a different economic system than Sarkozy (for example, I saw a woman saying "I'm 100% socialist, I think Hollande can change things for the better".

[Raúl Duke]

While capitalism


is enforced and upheld by a powerful ruling class.

and thus we don't exactly choose it I get what you're (the OP) trying to convey.

The issue has to do with a kind of historical short-sightedness.
Compared to what has come before and contemporary of capitalism, the other alternatives are worse or seem not much better. This is why people say (about capitalism) "It may not be a perfect system, but it's the best there is!"

Besides being a conservative position, It relies on a kind of logical fallacy, that argument presupposes that we can only choose between "what there is" or "what there has been" rather than something new.

This kind of thought isn't unique to capitalism, I think I heard of this one French aristocrat say something like "Feudalism is the best system we have" or something like that.

Personally, I feel like when Marx devised his historical materialism and outlined it in the communist manifesto he was in some way responding to this "It's not perfect, it's the best we have" stance by implying that, as long as there are class tensions, there's always the possibility for a new society that over-time will be better than the old.

In sum, the short answer, it kinda has to do with not knowing about other political theories but also I feel it has to do with not knowing much about history (In the past, feudalism was "the best system" and bourgeois republican capitalism an unknown thing).

[AinoAnarchist]

Oh yeah that makes sense (Im a noob <.<).

[p0is0n]

Gramsci coined it as cultural hegemony I believe.

[RedAtheist]

They thus equate socialism with social capitalism.

A more significant poll is this:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46684000/gif/_46684877_world_service_captial_466.gif

In this poll it is still unclear what "a different economic system" means as in France people think Hollande will implement a different economic system than Sarkozy (for example, I saw a woman saying "I'm 100% socialist, I think Hollande can change things for the better".

Which year is this poll from? I want to know if it is recent enough to site.

[ComradeOm]

We don't choose capitalism. It is enforced and upheld by a powerful ruling class.People implicitly 'choose' capitalism every day in myriad small ways. There is a widespread acceptance that capitalism and the bourgeois state are 'correct' and, whatever specific grievances people have, very few accept a systematic critique of capitalism itself

Nor is this simply a matter of force. Unless you live in a police state of course. The police may break down your door if you don't pay your taxes, for example, but the vast majority of people pay willingly and without the need for coercion. Violence is, of course, ever-present but in the Western democracies it is largely kept out of sight in favour of consensus government. Far from the ruling class "enforcing" their rule, we gladly accept it

And that's why people 'choose' capitalism and continue to cooperate with the bourgeois state. The latter is considered to be the legitimate form of government. There are a variety of reasons for this - including specific historical factors, propaganda, etc - but fundamentally this hegemony is maintained because the capitalists are capable of making minor sacrifices (the most obvious being universal suffrage) in order to present the myth of 'government for the people'. And very few people will object to that

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

1) Many of us live in rich nations. Whilst there are always people who are far richer and more powerful than us, we can also look to developing countries and see that we don't have it so bad. People do this, and then they consider that we are a post-industrial, financially Capitalist nation. They then make a false causation between industrialisation, the rise of financial Capitalism (post-industrialisation in the form of services, supply-side neoliberalism and so on) and economic growth and thusly higher living standards. Admittedly, it is true that the initial industrial capitalist revolutions that today's developed countries went through was, in terms of establishing economic growth as a phenomenon (from the early-modern period onwards) incredibly successful and, compared to feudal societies and many developing countries today, we are still pretty equal, stable, have low unemployment and are less prone to political dictatorship (economic dictatorship still persists just as virulently, mind!). I guess as Socialists we are either overzealous/overconfident that we are right or, I hope, that we are simply ahead of the game in some respects. Who knows, we will see.

2) The massive, massive power of propaganda. In any given country, in any given period, any study of effective propaganda is frightening in how strong an effect it can have on people. There was a good article in the i (the mini-independent) yesterday by Owen Jones, don't know if anyone saw it and don't know if it's online, but it was basically an analysis of how propaganda and mis-information have been used to shift the blame for excess in our society from those who actually purported excessive debt and risk, to those on welfare, even though the fraud rate for those on benefits is something like 1%, and the fraud rate for those on disability allowance something like 0.5%. It's stunning that in just a few decades, many developed countries have gone from having some semblance of care for their neighbours, to now being - almost to a man - behind (to some degree at least) the monstrous attack on the poor, in the form of anti-union laws, supply-side economics, cuts to the welfare budget and net transfers in education and healthcare from the poor to the rich (especially in the form of NHS and schools privatisation).

There are always other less generic, more complex factors. In the UK, the historical anomoly of 'working class conservatives' dates back to the time of Peel, Disraeli et al., which is why a lot of working class people in the UK have reactionary attitudes to economic and social issues, particularly immigration and welfare. I'm sure other countries have similar hangovers from by-gone eras, or particular circumstances unique to their culture and history, that to a greater or lesser degree, preclude the working class as a united group from standing up for their own best interests.