As German historian and Townhall columnist Rainer Zitelmann has proved over and over again, capitalism is the one economic system that’s done the most to increase living standards worldwide and thus bring about a dramatic decrease in extreme poverty.
As he told me a couple years ago in an interview about his book “In Defense of Capitalism,” “In 1820, around 90 percent of the global population was living in absolute poverty. Today, the figure is less than 10 percent.”
But the intellectual elite and left-wing politicians have successfully obscured the truth about capitalism and fed the world a steady diet of lies about the economic system. And today, we’re seeing the fruits of their labor.
Americans’ approval of capitalism has plunged to a record low, while their support for socialism has ticked up slightly in recent years, a new Gallup poll shows.
Only 54% of US adults surveyed said they have a positive image of capitalism, the lowest level Gallup has recorded since it began asking the question 15 years ago.
That’s down sharply from 60% support in 2021.
Their support of socialism has meanwhile grown slightly recently, from 38% in 2021 to 39% in 2025. Despite the small uptick, a majority of Americans still view socialism negatively, at 57%.
Much of the erosion of Americans’ positive image of capitalism comes from a decline among independent and Democratic voters, with Republican support largely remaining steady.
Democrats’ view of capitalism dropped from 50% positive in 2021 to 42%. That’s the first time the group’s approval amount dipped below 50%.
Independents’ perspective also went from 59% positive in 2021 to 51% in 2025.
But Republicans’ love of capitalism increased from 72% in 2021 to 74%, though it is still below the record high of 78% Gallup recorded in 2019. (New York Post)
As I previously wrote from that 2023 interview with Zitelmann:
Indeed, one of the greatest challenges for capitalists is changing the global mindset about the economic system. This is because Zitelmann considers anti-capitalism a political religion whose adherents will not necessarily be convinced by facts since it is faith that guides their emotions. […]
“From the balcony of my hotel, I watched thousands of anti-capitalist demonstrators in front of the Greek parliament building,” Zitelmann said of a recent trip to Athens promoting his book. “Half the time they were chanting and singing. I didn’t understand what they were singing, but you could see they were emotional, moving songs. That’s when I told my friend: ‘look, we only have facts, but they have songs.’ We should learn a lot from the anti-capitalists – not in terms of content, but in terms of marketing and PR.”
Americans’ view of socialism, meanwhile, has risen from 36 percent positive in 2010 to 39 percent now, according to Gallup, a concerning trend as more democratic socialists run for elected office.
Zitelmann finds it “astonishing” that a candidate like Zohran Mamdani could very well become the next mayor of New York City given socialism’s abysmal track record in dozens of nations around the world. So how can this be the case?
The German historian offers an explanation: “Because socialists have managed to successfully distance themselves from these failed experiments. When socialists are confronted with this long list of failed attempts, they always reply that these examples prove nothing, as they were not true socialist models.”
In his book “Socialism. The Failed Idea That Never Dies,” economist Kristian Niemietz outlines three distinct phases that every socialist experiment has gone through:
The Honeymoon Period: During this initial stage, intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic and praise the system to the heavens.
The Excuses-and-Whataboutery Period: Western intellectuals still support the experiment, but their tone becomes angry and defensive. Mistakes are admitted, but often attributed to capitalists, external enemies, or boycotts by the United States.
The Not-Real-Socialism Stage: At this point, once the failings are obvious, former supporters deny that the system was truly socialist. They argue that the country was never socialist in the first place.
So brace yourselves for the same cycle to possibly play out in NYC, Minneapolis, and no doubt other left-wing cities around the country as more reject capitalism and embrace the romanticized version of socialism parroted by the likes of AOC, Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, and Omar Fateh.
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