Perhaps surprisingly, opinions about the terms “socialism” and “capitalism” are not correlated with each other. Most of those who have a positive reaction to “socialism” also have a positive reaction to “capitalism”; in fact, views of “capitalism” are about the same among those who react positively to “socialism” as they are among those who react negatively (52% and 56%, respectively, view “capitalism” positively). Conversely, views of “socialism” are just as negative among those who have a positive reaction to “capitalism” (64% negative) as those who react negatively (61% negative).
In the new Pew report. Via Alex Lundry.
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Might this be explained by measurement error, as per Green’s argument here?
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2111245
I am not so sure there is no correlation at all.
Why do not say that there is a weak negative correlation?. To see the reason, note that:
Pr(Positive reaction to Capitalism|negative to socialism) = .56
Pr(positive view of capitalism) = .52
This means that the probability of a positive view of capitalism, given a negative view of socialism is slightly bigger than the unconditional positive view of capitalism.
The same is valid for socialism:
Pr(Negative to Socialism| positive to capitalism) = .64
Pr(Negative to socialism|negative to capitalism) = .61
On the other side, there is zero or almost zero effect if we look for positive correlation:
Pr(Negative to socialism|negative to capitalism) = .61 and Pr(negative to socialism) = .59
Pr(Positive to capitalism|positive to socialism) = .52 and Pr(positive to capitalism) = .52
Thus, I interpret the results as suggesting that:
1. if you view capitalism and socialism in the same way (both positive or both negative), than your view of capitalism and socialism do not presents correlation, what makes sense: if you think they are both great or they both suck, it probably means that these words do not matter at all for your.
2. If you see socialism in a negative way, than the probability that you will see capitalism positively is slightly higher than the oeverall opinion. And vice versa. What makes sense, since you think there is some difference between these words.
What it is still surprising is that they are so weakly correlated.
ps.: I know the differences I pointed may be due to sample error. Do you think so?
ps.:2: sorry for the bad english. It’s easir to read than to write a meaningful text.
Given the relative imprecision and broadness of the terms and the fact that the range of what they mean has changed over time, I can see that it might be possible (in the sense of intellectually defensible) to have a positive reaction to aspects of what one takes to be denoted by “socialism” and “capitalism.”
But for X to tell a pollster simply that X has a positive reaction to both terms would seem to indicate that X is ignorant — and not too much else.
Maybe they don’t see much difference between the two in practice…
On the other hand, the data show that groups with a more positive view of socialism consistently have a less positive view of capitalism. Looking at the 27 subgroups that they give data for in the table with breakdowns by gender, race, age, education, income, political ideology, and Presidential approval, there is a -.64 correlation between the percentage of the group with a positive view of socialism and the percentage with a positive view of capitalism.
Why doesn’t that correlation emerge at the individual level of analysis? Perhaps there is a strong response bias, with some people tending to respond positively to most of the terms and others tending to respond more negatively across the board. That would tend to create a positive correlation for people’s reactions to any pair of terms, which could cancel out the fact that older, richer, whiter, maler, more educated, more conservative people tend to be more positive about capitalism and less positive about socialism.
Per Dan’s last comment, there’s evidence that this tendency appears in several domains beyond the political questions covered in the piece I linked above:
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/64/6/1029/
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