Why do americans fear anything that's slightly left wing, let alone socialist ?

[Schonerlebnis]

Admit it's a bit of a blanket statement but there seems to be this widespread fear of any kind of left wing policy. I'm on a non political facebook group (cooking related so as ordinary as you can get) which has many US members and was surprised by how many called obama care socialist
Even the Democrats are accused of being left leaning (correct me if I'm wrong but that's not even remotely accurate !) and I'm not sure that they even have unions anymore ? On a recent US election thread someone mentioned that people feared that changes to the benefits system to support the vulnerable would lead to a rise in taxes and so make them poorer..... Can any one explain why a country that claims to look after the persecuted and vulnerable has such odd views ?

Thanks Plan,
Very detailed answer.

Thank you for this thread, I had been wondering exactly the same thing and the responses on here are fascinating and insightful.

I imagine more poor girls could access OXBRIGDE through Grammar schools back when they were everywhere, and now they are trying to redress the balance by actively recruiting from comprehensives. Obviously the ladder to Oxbridge for bright poor children was mercilessly Kicked away and not replaced with anything else, leaving millions of bright students failed or floundering...

I am from the Grammar school generation - most children didn't get to grammar school, and of those that did, girls tended to be pushed into non-degree level teacher training. At my grammar school in seven years there, no one went to Oxbridge - the last one had gone three years before we started.

What happens in the USA - I don't know.

My DH and I have discussed this a few times. I understand that the first people to go there (from the UK at least) were generally fleeing persecution, there were a lot of Puritans and that created a God-fearing, self-sufficient society that didn't want interference from government and that you made your own way in life. But that is so long ago now and there have been so many immigrants from other places, and yet still their left wing would probably still be right of centre here.

I also think the notion that we are cosseted in the UK an interesting perspective - compared with eg Denmark or Sweden or even Germany.

Ultimately that's what Brexit comes down to for some people - wanting to be more like the US than Scandinavia. The right wing Tories hate having to give any sort of help to the poor plebs. Covid must be driving the likes of JRM mad. Silver linings.

Another thought, religion doubtless comes into it. "Prosperity gospel" has a not insignificant following in the USA, the belief that riches and good health come from God, from which it follows that if people are poor or sick it is because they lack faith and are to blame. This is of course rejected by mainstream Christian theology, but nonetheless churches preaching prosperity gospel have big followings (and their leaders generally slurp up donations).

@GalesThisMorning

I'm American but live in the UK and I found it hard to get my head around how much you can "get for free" when I first moved here.

The American ethos is very rooted in self sufficiency. It is aspirational, but not achievable for most people. But it's in the grain of American literature, history, culture etc. Etc... look after yourself. That also extends to community and neighbourhood.

What Americans find hard to swallow is the idea of supporting people who don't work hard in return. The idea of hard work is a very important part of American culture, and not working hard can't be rewarded.

It's the Protestant Work Ethic - basically the founding myth of the nation. The quality of industry and resulting fruits are signs of God's grace.

Of course, for the majority of Americans, hard work isn't rewarded, either. You can work hard your whole life as a cleaner there and not be able to afford basic dental care.

The Dream only allows a select few to flourish, who rely on the uncompensated and unacknowledged labours of a large underclass. After all, for society to function, most of us can't be Hollywood movie stars and CEOs, even if we were so able. This basic piece of logic doesn't seem to be grasped by many.

America is actually a plutocracy, and to a lesser extent, a meritocracy. Wealth enables people to acquire many merits and amplify those they already have. But the enormous contribution of inherited/family wealth, natural and acquired assets, and, crucially, good fortune to life outcomes is completely overlooked by the "hard work" myth. Not to mention the value society places on various occupations. You actually have to work hard at the right job, have the opportunity and ability to do so, and a hefty dose of good luck to "succeed". And even then, you can quite easily lose it all because of circumstances, e.g., Covid lockdowns.

We must have been overdue for a good old fashioned goady America bashing thread. Just to correct one of the many points of misinformation here, the US government provides healthcare for over 100 million citizens and spends over a trillion dollars per year to do so.

www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-much-does-federal-government-spend-health-care

However, the process to get a specialist can be hellish. In the US with health insurance you have a PCP, or primary care physician. This is the same as a GP. You have problem x and need a specialist. You have to first book an appointment with the PCP who then, if they agree; has to apply for permission from your health insurance to refer you to a specialist.

This had some truth 20 years ago but insurance companies have dropped prior auth requirements for specialists as it wasn't saving them any money. Certain very expensive medications can require trying less expensive ones first for insurance to cover them. I work in healthcare and can't even remember the last time a pt needed a prior auth to see an in network specialist.

What I find so confusing is that the American government is actually much mote dictatorial than the U.K. one in several spheres!

Eg
Access to abortion
Compulsory vaccination
Removal of children/adoption
Death penalty
Longer prison sentences
Laws over home owners eg upkeep
Need licences for lots of employment eg estate agent, beauty
More surveillance at work
Blood tests before marriage
Ban on midwifery/home birth

So why they think they have more freedoms than us goodness knows!

It bloody baffles me.

The posters saying that the US was born as a reaction against a repressive state, I.e. Great Britain, and simultaneously against left-leaning states may be on to something, but I’m not clear what. Great Britain at that time was anything but a left-leaning state. It was a full-blown aristocratic oligarchy that had just about tipped power away from a monarchy to an aristocracy, which treated its own people as not much above slaves. I can’t really call it capitalist because it was before such terms but it knew all about Laissez-faire free-market ideology. It was towards the mid and end of the Victorian period that standardisation started to be recognised as sensible, and the inequalities caused by kicking people off the land and giving them no other way of earning a living began to be recognised - just recognised as real was a massive step. This was the US enemy, this is what they have turned into.

By contrast the reality of ‘the American dream’ only really became normality for most under FDR and the New Deal.

Can we please lose the confusion between socialist thinking, such as social democracy, and communism? There is a world between the extremes, with everything to play for.

The Quakers had a Protestant work ethic here - combined with good standards and mutual support.

Just to let you know, I know plenty of people with bipolar depression on SSI (or SSDI) here in America , even at a young age.

@TeachesOfPeaches

Capitalist culture built on individualism.

Protestant work ethic. every man for himself. defend your homestead. the pilgrim fathers were puritans, wanting the church of england to be purified of all things rome-ish, as they saw it. protestantism tends to further split as each generation thinks the previous one is not strict enough, it's all about individualism or individual accountability before god. this kind of perfectionism can get mixed up with condemnatory attitudes to those deemed less pure, less godly. the salem witch trials. the idea that god favours efforts, rewards hard work, so by extension if you are poor you have not tried hard enough. it's your own fault. this misses key concepts of the gospel, compassion, not judging others. there is a song by hank williams where a woman is loudly condemning the bad girl down the road. then there is a screech of tyres and that man's little child is nearly killed by a truck, except a person ran out saved the child and was killed themselves. it was the bad girl down the road.

… The child was unhurt and my neighbor cried out
"Oh! who was that brave girl so sweet?"
I covered the crushed, broken body and said
"The bad girl who lived down the street."

I disagree with a lot of what you say, McSilkson.
For starters, it's a bit of childish to say that the American Dream is about becoming a Hollywood star, and so therefore is a failure as we are not all billionaire movie stars. Nor is it a magic spell that overrides human nature, or natural disasters or plain bad luck. Just an aspiration that caste or creed shouldn't hold you back and that modest advancement over generations is possible via hard work, which is a choice open to everyone without regard to colour, caste or creed. Certainly not the norm then, when different laws applied to different religions/races/classes. I've used the example of a Russian serf upthread, add to that an Irish Catholic under the Penal Laws, a Jew in a ghetto, a black person in slavery. People have done, and continue to vote with their feet when it comes to the US, because their kids will be better off, if not themselves. There was never a promise that there would be no more poverty stricken drudgery. Just that your whole line would not be condemned to such for generations.
Not perfect, not without bumps in the road to say the least, but on a general progressive path which largely has worked for many when you look at time in decades.

FDRs new deal was a response to a desperate situation, which is why they chanced it I suppose, and the post war boom, which was inevitable anyway was similarly run along Keynesian lines - would like to see Biden put his money where his mouth is re a Green New Deal.

“Just an aspiration that caste or creed shouldn't hold you back and that modest advancement over generations is possible via hard work”

“if you are poor you have not tried hard enough.”

But these two are mutually incompatible? In the UK it’s the kicking away of ladders and the refusal to acknowledge a need for gradual growth that has people so enraged.

I dont think so, necessarily.
Possible doesnt mean guaranteed, sensible (!) people know theres a lot of variables.

I dont see what better principle you can organise a society on, besides advancement based on hard work & merit, virtues which are spread evenly throughout the population. Ok so, no society can control all variables so externalities will come into play, not to mention peoples own strengths and weaknesses and decisions. But what's the alternative, as a guiding principle?

There's also a myth that America is a much free-er country than ours ..I'm amazed at how many petty restrictions and laws they have ( we have plenty and it's getting worse here)..jaywalking anyone ? Also check out youtube for the stories of Home Owners Associations controlling the appearance of your house..America may be Land of the Free in the song but they are massively controlled in many ways we arent .

@ginandbearit

There's also a myth that America is a much free-er country than ours ..I'm amazed at how many petty restrictions and laws they have ( we have plenty and it's getting worse here)..jaywalking anyone ? Also check out youtube for the stories of Home Owners Associations controlling the appearance of your house..America may be Land of the Free in the song but they are massively controlled in many ways we arent .

I never believe in that myth. Our is just "messier" lol like private insurances everywhere but in the end, everyone is paying to help everyone.

100+ years of the very rich and powerful telling them that anything vaguely caring was communism

The home association is more of private policy than government run. That's the kind of business freedom some Americans want. It's like running a school for girls, you get to set the rules and anyone who don't mind it get to join it. The government will not have a say unless they are breaking the law . Home association can't discriminate who can live in the neighborhood.

I can't understand it. Just watching sky news where they are interviewing Trump supporters. One women in tears and extremely upset saying in an utterly horrified voice 'They are going to give free health care to everyone!' .......

Surely this is a good thing!

Another equally upset saying 'I don't want my children growing up in a socialist state, where people's feelings take priority' I am
Still trying to work out what that even means.

I suppose it means "other people's feelings are considered as important as mine."

Please don't lump all Americans together. Right wing media is mostly responsible for the horror of socialism. They never seem to mention that Medicare and Social Security are socialist programs. I do think that there is a real fear of a massive tax hike to pay for healthcare for all. There's also no understanding that the middle of the road Democrats aren't wild eyed revolutionaries, and has been mentioned, would be viewed as Conservative-Lite in other countries. There are large numbers of people that would like healthcare for all but see no way of getting there, especially with the Supreme Court blocking it every step of the way.I have a friend from China and, although she is quite educated, is against "socialism" as she can't separate the term from the rhetoric she heard growing up and how it would apply in the US.

The short basic answer is fear of state control, of which communism is the most extreme example.

And socialism is seen as a gateway to communism yep!

The longer answer is hugely complex and relates to

How America was created - essentially it's foundation is a country that was created on the premise of obtaining personal freedom - particularly relates to the freedom from state control as aforementioned but exemplified in freedom to practice any religion as so many of the first settlers were fleeing religious persecution.

Anti taxation - Boston tea party, independence war etc, no taxation without representation etc

The immigrant experience - immigrants welcomed but expected to forge their own way through hard work with little to no state assistance

The American dream - which even Americans can't agree totally on the meaning!

The pioneer experience - survival of the fittest more extreme here than in many other countries in relatively "modern" history, you have to remember that "settling the west" only happened a few generations ago, there are still towns even whole counties that are little changed from this time period. Every man for himself

Capitalism - success measured almost purely in terms of material acquisition, ostentatious displays of wealth, rags to riches, failure measured in terms of lack of assets, little to no positive meaning attached to psychological or emotional achievement, even their focus on academic achievement or sporting achievement is measured by how that translates to material acquisition OR preventing others from being successful and therefore making money eg space race

There are unions in the USA but they're regarded with a lot of suspicion and seen as too strongly connected to organised crime in some areas.

In the US, the state is something that oppresses you.

Yes!

@Toilenstripes I did find your posts offensive and ill informed to be quite honest, seems you still have much to learn including understanding and empathy towards the mentally ill

Particularly given that the mentally ill in the USA especially the ones that are poor (which if they're ill enough they can't work and aren't independently wealthy will be the case) are treated pretty shoddily by many accounts.

You seem to embody that USA stereotype of viewing mental illness as a character flaw rather than an illness.

My point is that if you are able bodied you are expected to work full time.

Rather proves my point!

Pretty sure you'd be hugely disapproving of me! A single mum with severe mental illness who's been in receipt of benefits it one kind or another including while in full time work for the last 18 years.