Almost 80 Percent of Philosophy Majors Favor Socialism
https://www.newsweek.com/socialism-philosophy-majors-college-poll-1449238
No other major comes close to the level of support for socialism amongst phil majors.
Quoting Newsweek
Why do you think philosophy majors are so enamored with socialism?
No other major comes close to the level of support for socialism amongst phil majors.
Quoting Newsweek
Philosophy majors were most likely to view socialism positively, with 78 percent of those polled saying they had at least a somewhat favorable view of it. Anthropology majors were a close second at 64 percent, followed by English majors at 58 percent and international relations, sociology and music majors all at 57 percent.
Why do you think philosophy majors are so enamored with socialism?
Comments (112)
At any rate, I also endorse socialism, but a very idiosyncratic version of libertarian socialism in my case.
It's funny because I went to college to study economics. (Compare econ majors with phil one's in the graph).
The underlying sentiment of most of my professors was that Marx was wrong. Now, that I am out of college, and pretty much philosophize in my free time, I feel like socialism at its core is an ethical form of government, as opposed to capitalism. Perhaps, that's why it is so favorable with phil majors?
Because they understand it. Hence by far the lowest numbers of unsures.
Those whose focus is on business and the earning of money (the mundane fields of finance, law, and accounting), don't seem as needful of the social pooling of money for the general welfare.
Maybe part of it is that under some majors there's a tendency to think of socialism as an endorsement of someone like Marx, whereas philosophy majors don't see it as an endorsement of any particular person's views?
I strongly dislike Marx, by the way. I don't equate him with socialism at all.
Curious how those with business majors (economics, finance, etc.) can't understand socialism. You'd think a better explanation is that they do understand it, yet reject it.
I think he was just highlighting the differences in the "unsure" responses.
Marx is not generally covered in finance and accounting though maybe to some degree in economics whereas he's likely to feature more in philosophy courses, I would think. And yes, the unsures stats suggest only lawyers know less about socialism than business majors. :D
Except that being unsure doesn't necessarily indicate an inability to understand, but just that the decision is nuanced and not entirely clear. To assume it's an inability to understand shows a bias in favor of the intellectual ability of a philosophy major against a business major, as we can assume both are taught about socialism at some point in their studies.
Tbh, I'm speculating from what I know from unis outside the U.S.
You're now equating Marxist philosophy to socialism in practice, which I don't think really equates. I would expect a business major to learn the effects of government regulation and involvement in the economy as it attempts to protect the general welfare of society. It's not as if all economics major just study the theoretical purely libertarian model.
My son is a finance major. I'll ask him what they teach him about Marx. If it's significant, I'll stop paying his tuition.
I'd pay it myself except I'm a broke socialist relying on capitalist charity to live. Which reminds me, I'll need a coupla more centuries on that loan...
How would you define socialism such that it excludes Marxism? Or are you just saying that the two are not the same thing?
I'd look at this from the opposite perspective: why are students in other majors less enamored with socialism? They value money and material things, and therefore they choose majors that will lead to well-paying jobs.
Yeah, socialism in no way implies any particular view of or concern with Marx.
Because philosophers are more likely to have learned to see that following self-interest per se is not the most suitable path to a good life.
Really? So, you're basically saying that philosophers can't make money from their trade, therefore they need government handouts to support them?
Ok, this at least makes more sense to me in that the philosopher is concerned with the welfare of the entire community they live in instead of solely their own welfare. So, under such an understanding, the issue then boils down to what is ethical?
Can you elaborate on this? I think most phil or econ majors tend to equate Marxist ideology with socialism.
And, how do you reconcile this with an interest in socialism on behalf of the philosophy major?
What other forms are there, asks the uneducated pig...
Quoting Janus
Well, how do you go from surmising that concern for one's self isn't always the ideal path towards the good life to favoring or advocating socialism?
I am no scholar of socialism, but a quick search yielded this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_socialism
Quoting Wallows
Capitalism is the valorization of self-interest, socialism is the valorization of concern for all.
Depends who you ask. It does go well beyond Marx but he's still the dominant figure, certainly in unis.
Thank you for crystalizing.
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/democratic-socialism-social-democracy-nordic-countries
Worth a read. (Particularly re the essential ownership of means of production aspect to socialism).
There seems to be very little consideration that people pick their majors based on personality tendencies they already have. Why are most teachers in America left-leaning politically? Because a free market capitalist would never become a low paid government lackey. They got entrepreneuring to get to. Notice the least supportive were the majors related to business. I don't think we should say "philosophy departments crank out socialists", we should say, "most people who choose to major in philosophy are already sympathetic to socialist ideas."
oops, I just saw that @Relativist beat me to this point...but I already typed it so...post.
Well, I hope others can see past this hyperbole and gross overgeneralization.
Others can just look at the data re Phil majors.
http://dailynous.com/2019/01/03/philosophy-majors-make-money-majors-humanities-field/
Not bad! Though I do feel for educators landing last place on that chart...
Relevant additional study: http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/papers/73.pdf
When asked to hypothetically fire a significant amount of the workers in a factory in order to maintain the previous year’s profit (even though one could choose to fire fewer workers and still make a profit), economic students would on average fire as many people as possible, while philosophy students would fire the least.
From the paper:
---
They were explicitly told that the questionnaire was not an exam and that there were no right answers.
---
And therein is the difference between an economist and a philosophy major.
Well, yeah, and that kind of ties into why economists have this narrow view of how capitalism is the holy grail and so on. Capitalism promotes, endorses, and rewards only one type of living, and that's worshiping the bottom line. Socialism allows for differences in people's life trajectories, goals, passions, etc. and aims to allow everyone their individual pursuit of happiness.
Yes, socialism along with communism are the only two forms of government that concern itself with what is ethical on an individual level. I suppose this is why we see the huge difference between the economist and the Phil major.
Well, the professions you mention are in the business of trying to make people happy. The heterodoxy of philosophy doesn't coincide with trying to make people 'happy'.
At best, they are in the business of making or saving their customers money. Not "happy".
And, what about that makes you so fond of them?
I was being sarcastic.
Oops, sorry. Hah. My internet autism is showing.
Eco and finance people, and esp. lawyers, make lots of money, so they don't need socialist welfare.
If you drew a chart on on axis counting the money earned by average graduate per discipline, and on the other axis average trend to like socialism (on one end) or capitalism, you'd get a clear picture.
"Where you stand depends on where you sit."
What business people seem to miss is that they GET TO OWN EVERYTHING. That means they get to determine their own pay, and the pay of everyone beneath them. And they will sell you a load of shit that “the markets determine this.” Nope. They control the markets. How did it get this way? I’ll tell you. Government entitlements. I’m not talking about Social Security or Medicare. I’m talking about corporate charters and property rights. The government ensures through its laws that the few get to determine how much the many gets. That’s the biggest hand-out of all.
I’m not prescribing anything different. I’m an investor myself. I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy.
While those who stand a higher risk to be fired would prefer a social-economic system of protective socialism, the workers who go on working would tend to prefer a less intensive socialist economic system.
Did I say that?
Quoting god must be atheist
That's a broad claim I hope you have some evidence or at least argument to back up.
Think public resistence to general medicare introduced in the USA. Same difference.
Please I beg you to work it out for yourself, because the concept is too simple to interest me to explain.
The public generally (70%) likes the idea of general medicare: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/most-americans-now-support-medicare-for-all-and-free-college-tuition.html
Quoting god must be atheist
That's a cute attempt to save face, but sadly also very transparent.
You also have nothing to back up your ideology.
This is my point. If you were unable to figure this out, I am sorry.
It almost hurt me to go down to this basic level of understanding human nature: the more helpless one is, the more help he or she will wish for, the less helpless one is, the less he or she will wish for help. This is... something that you don't have a concept of? If you do, why did you have to egg me to say this thing which a simple, uneducated 25-year-old is capable of figuring out?
Instead of exercising your brain, you called me spineless (not literally), stupid (not literally), and an incompetent arguer (not literally).
I hate this. I really did not come here to tell somebody as if it were wisdom,that "the helpless need help, and they therefore wish for it."
Cripes.
Why did you do this? Why did you do this to me? Are you really incapable of extrapolating such little wisdom from a few words that indicate this, or you had an agenda to make me do things I thought I would not need to do in the company of intelligent people which I hope this website is populated with?
Why did you egg me on? This is a serious question, not rhetorical. What was your very reason to squeeze this almost trival, trifle knowledge out of me, instead of admitting that it was almost self-evident?
Funny how you seem to take offense at my (apparently fictional?) ad hominems, but have no qualms about issuing them.
Quoting god must be atheist
Are you describing yourself here? That would explain a lot, actually--including your spelling.
Quoting god must be atheist
I did nothing of the sort to you. But it does sound like you have some issues (paranoia, for example) you may want to take up with a therapist.
But back to the actual content. You said:
Quoting god must be atheist
and
Quoting god must be atheist
To which I replied that 70% of Americans (and therefore a considerable percentage of those workers "who go on working") support medicare for all.
Quoting god must be atheist
This isn't really an argument for or against socialism. For instance, a person who's leg is broken will have an interest in getting a cast. Someone who's leg is not broken will not share that interest. Therefore, what? Per your logic, therefore the person with a broken leg shall not receive a cast?
Instead of moaning that the nitty-gritty details of your position are so elemental that it literally causes you pain to explain them, perhaps you should spend more time making sure they're actually any good.
One of the worst assumptions of all economics is that people should like producing things, and that production is good in and of itself. The assumption is we should throw more people into the world so they can be happy producing things. Kill me now please. :vomit:
You could always retreat into the woods/mountains as a hermit and forget about us silly humans.
To quote myself:
Your options are... be beholden to the forces of this behemoth technological economic giant and get by with the six or so "goods" to overlook the cirucular productive forces that we are forced into, or do the following- kill yourself, become a part of the underclass (homeless), become some sort of monk/hermit. These last three are not great choices, and the main de facto choice of just complying with the circular productive forces with six or so goods, is the default. These are just not great choices to be forced into. Keep the productive circular thing going with six goods to tide you over, experience contingent harm, and deal with problems and overcome them. By the time you realize that you don't want to be a part of ANY of these choices, IT'S TOO LATE.
Doing social work keeps me sane and happy, personally.
But to each his own--enjoy wallowing in your self-made hell :)
Another fallacy...if the system is flawed, it must be something wrong with YOU. It is a nice bit of social engineering to get people to blame themselves. Better shape up or shut up buttercup and all that. Knee jerk cliches. Widgets have to be made. The donuts do too. Better change your complaints so that you can comply with making widgets and donuts.. and all the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary aspects of the economic circularity of absurdity.
I'm actually only partly implying that. Yes, the system is flawed and broken and a gloomy pit of despair, yaddayaddayadda. BUT you also have choices about how to deal with life's lemons. Be a gloomy grouchy McSadPants, or try and make the best of it.
Yes it is a truism that we have choices. But as others have brought up, the system itself cannot be chosen. One cannot change the givens of existential and historical realities. One just deals with them, by yes, making choices within that framework. The ultimate arbiter of work is being born in the first place. Apparently people need to be born so they can work, and have choices about where to work :roll: (even if that was a perfect reality of really being able to choose where to work).
In my opinion, work or "labor" can be a good thing, once removed from the typical humdrum of the ever-hungry capitalist machine.
Par exemple, most people have "creative" hobbies in which they labor to produce something for their personal or shared/social enjoyment.
I find this argument of "creative" inherent capacities to be a slippery slope to justify the very "ever-hungry" (x economic system). The realities were because we were born we have to survive which means we need to utilize/consume some sort of resources for survival. The historical circumstances of civilization for the last 5,000 years has made it such that certain economic systems dominate, in the last 300 years or so, economies that can accommodate the harnessing of scientists and engineers to create more products wherewith other people can work (usually at more boring activities) to maintain these products and services in order to distribute through consumable exchanges at geographically convenient or logistically convenient settings. We are now in a holding pattern where society is structured that our creative "capacities" are to be harnessed in this techno-economic manner.
We know these are the material givens of reality/economics. So we bring more people into this so they can make "choices" within this system. I just don't see it as good to bring people into. In fact, no economic system would be good to bring more people into. To justify that it is good to bring people into some sort of work-reality (any X economic system) because people have "inherent creative capacities" that can be harnessed by this system, is just justification to forcing more people to be born in order to work in the absurd circularity of the economic system.. Sprinkle this with some sort of hedonic justification of the 6 or so pleasures of the world (physical/aesthetic pleasure, relationships, yadayada...) :vomit: :vomit: and you have justification to use people FOR THEIR OWN GOOD DAMNIT!!.
:lol:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, the truth is that those pleasures you so eloquently disdain arise out of a biology that pushes us to utilize/consume just in order to procreate. Why? No meaningful reason. There's no point to our existence from the perspective of the universe.
But there's a point to my existence because I, as a conscious creature, am the meaning-maker and I say there is one. Instead of feeling robbed of.... of what? Non-existence? The chance not to...think? Be? Feel?
Once you've stared down the empty and treacherous throat of existential crisis, you need to pull yourself back and decide: "you took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade."
That perspective is off.. If you never existed, there is no mattering in the first place. There is no you to be deprived of anything in the first place. You are not in a room saying, "Let me in!".
Quoting NKBJ
Just keep producing stuff or die, including more lemonade.
Right! So what's the point in that?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I produce knowledge :wink: :victory:
It's a nonsensical question. The point in never existing (which can never happen to the ones who already exist) or for potential new people?
Quoting NKBJ
The assumption is that production is good and needs to occur, and people need to fulfill that by being born to do that. But of course this is begging the question why this needs to occur.
That's not my assumption. My assumption is that since people are going to be born whether you like it or not, we have an obligation to make those lives as good and meaningful as possible.
I present to you my thread on this subject:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6202/work-should-be-based-on-quantity-of-boredom-involved
My opinion of you here is not an ad hominem argument; this is not an argument; it is simply an opinion I formed about you, and that's where the buck stops.
Consequently I don't want to deal with you. Ever. Please note that I am stopping as of now to read your posts. If you respond to this post of mine, or any other, or if you write me a private note, I won't read it.
Please don't misunderstand that I do this to make others to follow my example. No, it's just simply between you and me.
In NKBJ’s defense, she might be arguing that people ought to take a stake (and often do) in the community regardless of how the system treats them personally.
As for the 70% agreeing with Medicare-for-all, the approval drops to a minority when followed up with the caveat that they would lose their employer-based insurance.
Easy problem to confront given that the average person holds ~11 different jobs by the time they are 50, meaning that - assuming each employer actually provides health insurance - a person loses their employer-based insurance 11 times. People lose their employer-based insurance whenever they change jobs or if they are let go/fired.
She did not say this, and she denied the validity of valid arguments. I am sorry, I don't have the patience to continue doing a quixotic battle against windmills.
She had no defence. She said things that in my humble opinion were plain stupid.
Sure, but as I point out clarification and framing can shift this approval. So as I said, the way to confront this issue for voters is to say, well actually you and other people can lose your employee-based insurance if you change jobs, if you are let go from a job or fired, and the only way to secure permanent healthcare regardless of your employment situation is through Medicare for All.
Perhaps I read that into what she said. It would have been a halfway decent premise for her to build on.
Yeah, people can be manipulated quite easily by authority figures. If they hear a leader with a strong personality frame something a certain way...
It has nothing to do with manipulation. If the public approval for Medicare goes down because of a specific concern viz., that people will lose their employee-based health coverage, then it can be addressed by the fact that people routinely lose their employee-based coverage quite often and that Medicare For All is the only way to ensure permanent coverage. It's a straightforward, and accurate response.
my response
I've not suggested the purpose of our creation is to maximize production or that there is an inherent good in maximizing one's financial success. That's just a straw man that you've concocted.
But it is in our nature to want to create things. Maximizing production, no, of course not. That is the company founder’s goal and the goal of the shareholders. To hell with the people who do the grunt work that they don’t even get to own the fruits of.
IMHO Capitalism only works for everyone when the workers have some say about their work. Like in Germany where the boards of companies must have laborer members on them.
The reality is that some things have higher financial value than others, and we needn't pay a teacher what we pay a surgeon out of a since of fairness, especially in light of what I've said: financial rewards are not a declaration of human worth. If your passion is growing tomatoes, have at it, but you can't expect to sell them for the price of steak. You can't make the world want to buy your produce.
I think Wallows chart (on the first page) shows the truth quite well: those fields that actually have something to do with understanding how economies function have a negative view of socialism. Philosophy as a theoretical field looks at more of the ideological issues at stake, so no wonder that philosophers have typically been socialists (and believers in trendy totalitarian systems of the times).
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
There are many prerequisites for capitalism to function well starting from the rule of law (hence a functioning state) in the society. There being a board member representing the employees maybe not the most important issue here. For example the ability of workers creating labour unions and negotiating salaries collectively with the employer is a far more important issue and totally in line with capitalism.
I wrote about this in my book. This is a straw man. Of course a teacher shouldn’t make what a surgeon does. But should the Walmart family be worth what their worth while the average worker gets $10/hour? They should have worker board members so they can see how their decisions affect real humans. Then they might not just see them as liabilities on a spreadsheet, and they might get dare I say $17/hour.
That was my point.
It's pretty obvious that you're just throwing a tantrum because you have no argument, evidence, or logic to back up your claims.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Thank you for your attempt to reason with the brute, but it seems he's lost that ability for now.
Also, as to your claim about support dropping to 30%, could you supply a source for that please?
I would argue (in the abstract, without having seen the poll in question) that a surveyor telling people they would have to give up private healthcare when the government offers medicare for all is misinformed at best, and at worst lying.
Medicare-for-all is a replacement for employer-based insurance. Are you thinking about a public option?
Sorry, I can’t. It was on MSNBC.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanders-medicare-for-all-bill-how-would-it-work/
The specifics about how socialized healthcare can and do get implemented differ widely from country to country. So, Medicare-for-all is often combined with some sort of public option, whether that be reduced to only coverage for cosmetic surgeries, or to your total insurance.
Furthermore, I think Sanders was right during the last debate when he pointed out that people aren't dedicated to their insurance companies per se, they just want to keep their doctors--and a socialized system would of course require all health providers to be "in-network" to use that industry's lingo.
From your link:
“Sanders' plan requires eliminating the tax-free status of employer-provided health insurance (and since his plan would essentially eliminate employer-provided insurance, it makes no sense to preserve its tax-free status).”
I see where you might be confused. A public option is not private insurance. It’s a government-run alternative to private insurance. It’s what some candidates are advocating as a first step in order to eventually phase out for-profit insurance so we can eventually get to a single payer system. That’s the strategy anyway.
Medicare for all is much more ambitious and disruptive. It’s a huge step all at once.
Yes, his is one of the possibilities for public healthcare. That's not how it has to be run.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
Okay. So that's what you'd be in favor of?
I think so, but if the nominee is for Medicare for all then so be it. I would never vote for the con man.
You mean the Racist-in-Chief?
Yes, the Commander of disinformation.
Orange-Tufted Imbecile Intent on Armageddon
Or his son-in-law and daughter!
The Angry Creamsicle
For a start, socialism accords with most major religions. That should garner considerable support for it. And that's just for starters. Alternative political systems - so-called right-wing systems - are based on selfishness and greed. These are difficult (for me, at least) to justify in moral terms. So I gravitate toward socialism. Not state-dictatorship, socialism. Surely many others feel likewise, hence this topic?
Thanks
Bill
There were plenty of other Socialists who were around around the time. I tend to assume that Socialism refers to some sort of preferece for an egalitarian socio-economic relationship that goes beyond Social Democracy and that Communism refers to set of ideas proceeding from Karl Marx.
You could, for instance, say that Marxism and Communism effectively mean the same thing but not that Marxism and Socialism do. The meanings, of course, would vary given different contexts.