“ I want a new capitalism. Not fueled by wars. One that doesn’t pass on its wealth to a handful of white guys and call that free trade. One wherein the elderly actually get paid their retirement monies. We’ll have capitalism, but we’ll also have socialism. And education and basic compassion and health care. I’m talking about a system that rewards hard work and ambition but cares for it’s weakest child–and being called a feminazi for saying these things will be considered treasonous.
A new study finds—and I paraphrase loosely—that Americans are basically socialists but don’t know it because they don’t realize just how fucked up our country is.
The research, from two noted economists, looks at how wealth is actually distributed in the U.S., how people think it’s distributed, and how they think it should be distributed. From the Atlantic (emphasis mine):
“The chart below conveys the central point: people think the distribution of wealth is more equal than it actually is; and they think it should be much more equal than their already unrealistically-equal notion of its current state. Eg: the top 20% of the US wealth distribution actually controls nearly 85% of total wealth; people think the top 20% controls under 60%; and they think it should control just over 30%.
Similarly: people feel that the bottom 20% of the economic pyramid “should” have about 10% of the total pie; they think it actually has about 3% or 4%; in fact, its share appears to be too small to show up on the chart.”
Turns out 92% of Americans would prefer a wealth distribution that looks a whole lot like Sweden’s. So let’s get on that.
