A recent Pew survey asked people to react to the words “socialism” and “capitalism.” It reveals some quirks, like the 12% of Tea Party supporters who favor socialism–what’s up with them? (See the table below.) But I’m especially interested in the age differences, brought to my attention by Iris Deroeux.

Among 18-29s, 49% react favorably to “socialism,” compared to 31% of the whole adult population and just 13% in the 65+ age range. Fewer young people (46%) react favorably to “capitalism.” The latter is not a wildly popular term in the whole sample, but around half the individuals in each age group like it.

One could explain young people’s favorable response to “socialism” in several ways. Their experience with actual capitalism has been limited to the past decade, which was a bad one. Arguably, they don’t have as much information/understanding of socialism as older people do–although I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion without data. (I would rather suspect that hardly anyone knows what it is.)

But here’s my actual guess: young people have heard “socialist” thrown as an epithet at Barack Obama. The President remains popular among them, and to the extent that he has lost popularity, a major reason is his perceived unwillingness to confront his opponents: the very people who label him a socialist. Those opponents (conservative or “movement” Republicans) have very weak youth following. So every time they call the President a socialist, the reputation of socialism rises.

What should “socialism” mean, anyway? I would say: Workers’ or popular control of the means of production. In a socialist society, either the workers own and manage the factories and farms by committee, or the government (seen as responsive to the whole population) owns and manages all the productive assets. Genuine popular control may be impossible because of Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy–which asserts that a small group will inevitably seize assets in their own interest–or it may be undesirable, but it is clear enough as an ideal.

By this definition, the United States has never been socialist, but the elements of our economy that could be described as socialist are relatively old and have shrunk. I am thinking of the Postal Service, public schools and universities, the Forest Service, prisons, and scattered agencies like the Tennessee Valley Authority and NASA. All could be described as providing goods or services by directly employing workers in the state sector. But all have lost their monopolies in an age of UPS and FexEx, the University of Phoenix, school vouchers, SpaceX, and for-profit prisons. The US has never nationalized companies, and worker-owned enterprises have always been small.

Another definition holds that a government is socialist if it taxes and spends in order to distribute goods or social outcomes more equally. I would reject that definition because it conceals an important difference between states that produce things and states that buy things from private vendors. Our governments (at all levels) tax and spend, but to a large extent, they spend tax dollars on capitalist goods and services. Social Security checks go to individuals who buy what they need on the market. Medicare and Medicaid checks go to private hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and physicians’ practices. The Department of Defense buys aircraft carriers from Northrop Grumman et al. I see that as regulated or subsidized capitalism, not socialism. It is the central direction of the Obama administration, which has tried to stimulate capitalist enterprise and subsidize and regulate private medical insurance. When they’ve ended up owning an enterprise, they’ve tried to get rid of it as fast as possible: what I’ve called “hot potato” socialism.

It would be analytically less clear, but not wrong, to assert that any government that taxes and spends is socialist. In that case, however, Mitt Romney is only a few percent less socialist than Barack Obama is, and FDR was only a bit more socialist than Herbert Hoover was. Socialism can’t be a deep political divide if all governments have taxed and spent since the 1700s. (We just haggle over the quantity.)

That’s why I think modern libertarianism often adds two ingredients: 1) taxing and spending should be local or state prerogatives, and 2) any federal spending should be limited to the express purposes listed in Article I of the Constitution. There are arguments for these views, but it’s important to notice that they are but weakly tied to the basic arguments against socialism. If socialism is taxing and spending, then any American city would be a socialist republic even if the federal government got completely out of the business of education, welfare, health, and environmental protection.

To return to the survey results: I doubt very many Americans have a sharp definition of socialism, and I suspect that our implicit definitions vary quite widely (from any degree of government-funded welfare to a Leninist state monopoly of production). “Capitalism” seems surprisingly unpopular to me, and “socialism” polls better than I would have expected. I would guess that reflects a backlash against the way the term is being used to marginalize President Obama, rather than an actual endorsement of socialist principles–but who knows?

University of Wisconsin Professor Constance Flanagan has won the 2012 Tisch Research Prize, which recognizes her career of distinguished research on young people’s civic engagement. The award will be presented at Lincoln Filene Hall, Tisch College, on March 26 from 4:30-6 pm. Following a very brief ceremony, I will interview her about her work and major findings. We will then welcome the audience to join the conversation about what encourages young people to develop as active citizens, what results from their civic engagement, and how their political identities vary.

An RSVP is not required, but it would be helpful if you would indicate that you plan to attend by clicking here.

Connie Flanagan is a psychologist who had investigated young people’s civic and political engagement in Europe, Latin America, and in the United States among college students, non-college-bound young adults, and adolescents. She conducts both qualitative and quantitative research, thinks and writes theoretically, and has launched civic education programs for undergraduates at both Penn State and Wisconsin. She has won many awards, served as a mentor for many colleagues, and written widely cited works.

Last week, I went into my usual barbershop in Somerville, MA, where the men’s haircuts are $12. It’s underground and the walls are painted with scenes of southern Italy. Tony, the barber, was talking with three customers. Everyone was using a mixture of Italian and English. The customer in the middle chair was the center of attention. Bobby never forgave her, it seemed. I gradually figured out that she was referring to Bobby Kennedy, and he never forgave her because she had been so strong for Stevenson in ’56. I managed to ask Tony who she was, and he said, “That’s Mrs. Schlesinger; she’s 100 years old.”

Well, it turns out that she is Marian Cannon Schlesinger, the first wife of Arthur Jr., who has just recently published her latest book, I Remember: A Life of Politics, Painting and People (2011). Born to a distinguished Harvard professor and novelist mother, she studied Chinese painting in Beijing in the 1930s. She wrote and illustrated a classic children’s book about China; the New Yorker called the pictures “exceptional.” She married Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.,  and followed him to Kennedy’s Washington but got divorced in 1970, later writing Snatched From Oblivion, a memoir of strong women, politics, and Harvard’s uneasy relations with Cambridge.

A big cold front was blowing in, with winds up to 40 miles an hour. Ms. Schlesinger had walked in on her own and happily walked back out. I guess she was speaking to the barber in Italian because she knows that language among many others. But she’s not really 100, only about 98 or 99.

It made me think–critically–of the famous lines by e. e. cummings about “Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls.” Perhaps e. e. should have been more attentive to some of the souls he met:

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church’s protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow, both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things—
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
…. the Cambridge ladies do not care, above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

(Washington, DC) I started blogging on Jan. 9, 2003 and have since published 2,176 posts, almost one per workday. Every year on my blogaversary, I reflect on the year’s blogging. In 2011, the biggest change was a shift to WordPress, which allowed me to accept comments again and to embed Facebook and Twitter buttons. (I find I have a Pavlovian reaction to “likes” and Tweets.)

My favorite posts on my own blog this year  included:

• three truths and a question about happiness
• Seascape (poem)
• reform the university to meet the public’s knowledge needs in an age of information overload (mainly a video)
• a ten-point plan for civic renewal
• on religion in public debates and specifically in middle school classrooms
• nine general but contradictory truths
• snapshots of Black politics
• if we are going to put millions in prison, WE should make millions of decisions
• rebirth without metaphysics
• Robert Lowell at the Indian Killer’s Grave (criticism)
• Syracuse University: slide or rise?
• what would Jane Addams say?
• nostalgia

I also posted more frequently on other blogs in 2011, including: “If You Want Citizens to Trust Government, Empower Them to Govern” (on the Democratic Strategist blog), “Young, Black, and Voting” (on the Root), and four entries on HuffingtonPost.