Why Do Many Americans Have a Positive View of Socialism?

Socialism promises many things and claims to prioritize people over profits. But what people actually get is different.

Socialism is popular!

A Pew study reports that more than a third of American adults view it positively.

How is this possible?

Little has brought more misery—first in the Soviet Union, then in China, Cuba, Nicaragua, now Venezuela.

One reason young people support socialism is because their social media feeds show videos made by popular but economically illiterate people.

TikTok star Madeline Pendleton has 1.6 million subscribers. My new video shows her telling them: "Socialism is working better than capitalism 93 percent of the time!"

Where does she get 93 percent?

From a study published in 1986 by self-described Marxists in the Journal of Health Services.

The authors conveniently ignore the United States and other wealthy countries and compare socialist economies to "capitalist" countries like Uganda, Rwanda, and Somalia, some of which were at war.

It's so stupid. But based on that, Pendleton tells her followers, "We have all the data showing that socialism does work."

She also celebrates communism because of its "increased life expectancy."

That's nonsense, too. People live longest in capitalist countries like Japan (85 years) and South Korea (84 years). Even in the United States (79 years), where more of us die young because we drive more (car accidents), eat more, shoot each other more often, and try more dangerous drugs, we still live longer than people in China (78 years).

Socialism is also superior, says Pendleton, because of "the 90-100 percent home ownership rates."

"One hundred percent," of course, is just dumb, but China (if you believe the party's statistics) does have 90 percent homeownership.

But not under socialism! They achieved that only after privatizing urban housing. Before 1998, when Chinese housing was still socialist, just 20 percent of Chinese people owned homes.

Several social media stars rave about China. "Socialism worked in China!" says TikToker Dante Munoz. "They lifted over 800 million people from poverty."

Again, it's true that in the last 50 years, China's gross domestic product (GDP) went from $156 per capita to more than $12,000. But that only happened after China gave up on real socialism and started embracing markets. Hong Kong, which adopted actual capitalism, raised per capita GDP to $50,000.

Before China reformed, millions of people died of starvation.

Another silly social media star, J.T. Chapman, tells his almost 2 million YouTube subscribers: "The central idea that unites all socialists is maximizing freedom…democratization of power."

Democratization? In most socialist countries, there's only one political party.

A popular TikToker calling himself Rathbone tells his hundred thousand subscribers: "capitalism…prioritizes profits over people…[but] socialism…prioritizes people over profits."

Likewise, Chapman says socialism offers the "guaranteed right to…health care, food, and shelter."

Well, of course socialism promises those things and claims to prioritize people over profits, but what people actually get is different.

As Cuban doctors put it in this video, "The Cuban health care system is destroyed….People are dying in the hallways."

Yet Chapman claims, "Innovation can flourish even when people are not motivated by profit. The USSR gave the world the anthrax vaccine, artificial satellites, and one of the earliest mobile phones."

That is true. But no one uses those phones today. Capitalism just creates much more.

Finally, Chapman says, "Ownership should be collective."

Collective ownership does feel good. "We'll share everything!"

But every attempt at collective ownership has failed.

One famous American example: 200 years ago, New Harmony, Indiana, abolished private property, promising a "community of equality."

The result was famine.

When people realized they could receive just as much barely working as they could working hard, many, naturally, worked less. Within a year, the commune experiment failed and property was returned to private hands.

What do these popular social media stars say when I confront them with these inconvenient truths? Sadly, I don't know. Not one would appear on Stossel TV to debate.

The bottom line: Incentives matter. No one washes a rental car. Few people care much about what belongs to everyone. It's just human nature.

Capitalism isn't perfect, but if we want a better future, and freedom, capitalism is the only thing that works.

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