Society & Politics
myReview 1 mo

MAGA, We have a problem here. OR, my 60's activism is showing just for a minute or two.

MAGA, We have a problem here. OR, my 60s activism is showing just for a minute or two.

Why is Support for Socialism Growing. Recent survey data reveal that support for Socialism is increasing in the United States, even though it has failed massively everywhere it has been tried. There is mounting support for socialism reflecting a growing frustration with capitalism and it's economic woes for an increasing proportion of voters that believe they are being left behind.

Mamdani's election Mayor of New York City is momentous. He was swept into office by a majority of voters that are disillusioned with the status quo and see the mirage of economic prosperity in the false promises of socialism. MAGA, along with the United States of America as a whole. Three primary factors collectively explain the growing support for socialism here.

*Wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top.
*While the distribution of wealth is highly skewed, the distribution of votes across the electorate is not.
*The myth is that wealth can be redistributed without significantly reducing its size.

*Skewed U.S. Wealth Distribution
Winston Churchill once said “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries". Abilities and talent are not uniformly distributed across the population, nor is the attendant distribution of wealth. The need for the government to protect the rights of the citizenry to acquire property in accordance with their individual skills and abilities is a delicate balance that must be maintained.

Wealth in the U.S. is far more concentrated today than at any time in modern history. Over the past 50 years, wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top. The wealthiest 1% of Americans held 31% of U.S. net worth in 2024. The top 1% held $49.2 trillion in wealth in 2024. At the bottom end of the distribution, the Federal Reserve data revealed that the least-wealthy 50% of U.S. households held less than 4% of the nation’s wealth.

Other factors, along with the non-uniform distribution of talent and ability combine to explain this increasing concentration of wealth. These include:
*The markedly higher returns to those invested in the stock market.
*Favorable tax laws.
*The increased digitalization of the U.S. economy, in which winner-take-all contests for dominant marketing platforms generate enormous wealth for the few who first get into them.

Social comparison theory in psychology provides another explanation for the growing dissatisfaction with the disproportionate concentration of wealth. It is how we feel about our wages and wealth in comparison with the wages and wealth of others. As wealth becomes concentrated at the top, those outside this group look upon their own economic circumstances with increasing disfavor and resentment. And those at the top look at us unfavorably.

*Voting Power is Uniformly Distributed Across the Population
Whereas the distribution of wealth has become highly concentrated in the U.S., the distribution of voting power has not; the one-man-one-vote rule is the law of the land. The implications of this asymmetry are profound and have already begun to manifest themselves with a leftward shift in certain political contests across the country such as California, Chicago and New York.

50% of the voting power in the U.S. is concentrated in those households that control less than 4% of total U.S. wealth. A volume of U.S. households find themselves on the outside looking in. That resentment, fueled by these economic disparities, will expand and ferment until the system breaks and we begin to see growing support for policies that reflect the sentiment of “If I can’t have it then you won’t have it either.”

*The Electorate’s Growing Temptation for wealth Redistribution
The combination of a population in which wealth is highly concentrated at the top and voting power is not, invariably gives rise to calls for wealth redistribution and support for political candidates peddling socialism.

High inflation and deep-seated affordability concerns serve only to fan the flames of economic discontent. A British leader once observed that “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.” This statement is about the erosion of wealth that occurs when the government attempts to redistribute it from those who earned it on merit to those that did not.

When wealth is dissipated by government attempts to redistribute it. This erosion occurs because egalitarian wealth redistribution destroys the incentives that are the indispensable for a prosperous market economy. Socialist redistribution policies quite literally kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Is Capitalism beginning to sink?
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. Capitalism can make no credible claim to fairness in the distribution of wealth. The risk is that the superiority of capitalism in terms of its robust incentives to improve things and create wealth will fall prey to the growing dissatisfaction of the voters with the distribution of wealth they receive,.

Capitalism as an economic system may not survive in a political equilibrium in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top. To save capitalism from the swamp of socialism it may ultimately prove necessary to practice a less pure form of it. The strong union movement in response to The Robber Barons of the early 20th century may hint at a solution.

In the end, we (MAGA, conservatives, Republicans, Christians, Patriots, etc., don't want to be sitting on the deck sipping single malt Scotch from Crystal glasses while the Titanic begins to sink beneath the waves. Much as I hate to say this, we better wake up.

MAGA, We have a problem here. OR, my 60s activism is showing just for a minute or two.
MAGA, We have a problem here. OR, my 60's activism is showing just for a minute or two.
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