Thursday, April 9, 2009

Capitalism vs. Socialism: What Do They Know?

While I abhor polling data, largely for reasons previously described, I found a recent Rasmussen Report on capitalism vs. Socialism to be interesting. Apparently, 53% of the people polled believed that capitalism was better than Socialism and that about 27% were not sure.

What I found interesting was that the capitalists still have a majority, at least according to the poll. But honestly, do those 53% really know what true capitalism is all about or have they spent their days watching shows like "Mad Money" and believe that this is true capitalism.

Capitalism as an economic policy has not been a staple of any particular administration for decades now and it's not a particular favorite topic of discussion in Presidential debates. Both candidates called for blatantly statist polices in the last election. This time the most statist candidate won and has a very high majority in both houses of Congress.

Yet despite this, for some reason a majority of people in this nation believe that capitalism is the way to go with a huge chunk just not sure if either political philosophy is viable. Oddly enough, I doubt this poll will have a huge impact on the behavior of Congress. This is because when the banking bailouts were proposed, polling data indicated that all of use never wanted it, but Congress decided they knew better than us.

I am still wondering, however, if most people truly understand the fundamental concepts of capitalism and that the United States really isn't a capitalist country.

Another thing that concerns me is how the people's vote doesn't seem to involve much rational thinking if we are to believe this poll.

Think about it.

Neither candidate was the poster child for capitalism. People voted for Obama because he brought "Change" and "Hope" and "Government Waste." People voted for McCain primarily because he wasn't a racist and because he was anti-unborn-baby-brain-scrambling (my wife hates it when I put it that way). So really, when people vote, they vote because they either feel good or they feel fear.

But when you call them to task on their intellect, suddenly they're well-rounded people who truly seem to understand how things really work, at least according the poll.

I guess that's what happens when you base you executive power on a mandate from the masses. You end up resorting to the lowest common denominator and appealing to emotions rather than reason.

Emotionalism is killing this nation.