Why is Support for Socialism Growing?

Socialism is a wonderful idea.

It's only as a reality that it has been disastrous.

~ Thomas Sowell

The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

~ David Horowitz

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have made it very clear: they're planning a socialist takeover of American cities and America itself, using the Democratic Party as their springboard. Zohran Mamdani is just the beginning; a slew of socialist candidates are running for office, both at the local and national levels, including the Senate.

Recent survey data reveal that support for socialism is increasing big time in the United States. This may be surprising, given that socialism is a much-criticized economic system that has failed spectacularly everywhere it has been tried. The mounting support for socialism reflects a growing frustration with capitalism and the economic woes of an increasing proportion of the population that believes it has been left behind.

The election of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of a city that is home to Wall Street is sobering. This pied piper of economic illiteracy has been swept into office by a majority of voters that have grown so disillusioned with the status quo that they see the mirage of economic prosperity in the false promises of socialism. We ignore this development at our own peril.

While pundits fixate on charisma, free buses, grocery stores, and immigrant outreach, they miss the deeper truth: Mamdani’s win was not about policy; it was about revolution. The revolution is not coming. It’s here — dressed in the language of social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, climate change, gender-affirming care, solidarity, etc. It’s a generational and philosophical revolt against the foundational structures of American liberalism: constitutionalism, capitalism, and incremental reform.

Misdiagnosing Mamdani’s victory as a populist appeal for municipal benefits blinds us to the deeper ideological realignment underway. This was not a vote for municipal tweaks. It was a vote for rupture. Mamdani’s core supporters were not casting ballots for groceries or rent freezes. They were voting against the system itself — against the Constitution as it was written, against the legacy of liberal democracy, and against the institutional scaffolding of American governance.

Mamdani’s win is a warning shot: the revolution is being voted in, not stormed in. And unless conservatives understand the symbolic power of revolutionary identification — and learn to counter it with a compelling civilizational narrative —they risk being outflanked by movements that care less about governance than about transformation.

There are three primary factors that collectively explain the growing support for socialism in the U.S. First, wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top. Second, while the distribution of wealth is highly skewed, the distribution of votes across the electorate is not. Third, the myth that refuses to die is that wealth can be redistributed without significantly reducing its size.

Winston Churchill observed that “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Because abilities and talent are not uniformly distributed across the population, neither is the concomitant distribution of wealth. The framers recognized the need for the government to protect the rights of the citizenry to acquire property in accordance with their individual skills and abilities. Writing in Federalist 10, James Madison was prescient about the delicate balance that must be maintained.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties…The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government.

Wealth in the U.S. is far more concentrated today than at any time in modern history. Over the past four decades wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top. The wealthiest 1% of Americans held 22.8% of U.S. net worth in 1989 with this share rising to 30.8% by 2024. In dollar terms, the top 1% held $49.2 trillion in wealth in 2024. Moving to the other end of the distribution, the bottom 50% held 3.5% of total U.S. wealth in 1989 with this number shrinking to 2.8% by 2024. Federal Reserve data reveal that the least-wealthy 50% of U.S. households hold less than 4% of the nation’s wealth, while households in the top 10% hold over two-thirds of that wealth.

Several factors along with the non-uniform distribution of talent and ability combine to explain this increasing concentration of wealth. These include the markedly higher returns realized by those invested in the stock market, favorable tax laws, and the increased digitalization of the U.S. economy (inclusive of AI) in which winner-take-all contests for dominant platforms generate enormous wealth for a fortunate few.

Social comparison theory provides yet another explanation for the growing dissatisfaction with the increased concentration of wealth. This psychological theory posits that how we feel about our wages and wealth is relative in that it depends on a comparison with the wages and wealth of others. As wealth becomes concentrated at the top, those outside this group look upon their own economic circumstances with increasing disfavor and resentment

Voting Power is Uniformly Distributed Across the Population

Whereas the distribution of wealth has become highly concentrated in the U.S., the distribution of voting power has not; the one-man-one-vote rule is the law of the land. The implications of this asymmetry are profound and have already begun to manifest themselves with a leftward shift in political contests across the country.

The above statistics tell us that 50% of the voting power in the U.S. is concentrated in those households that control less than 4% of total U.S. wealth. This means that the preponderance of U.S. households find themselves on the outside looking in. The resentment fueled by these economic disparities will build and fester until the fault line gives way and we begin to see growing support for policies that reflect the sentiment of “if I can’t have it then you won’t have it either.”

The combination of a population in which wealth is highly concentrated at the top and voting power is not invariably gives rise to calls for wealth redistribution and support for political candidates peddling socialist doctrine. High inflation and deep-seated affordability concerns serve only to fan the flames of economic discontent. In an oft-quoted phrase, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher observed that “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.” At its core, this statement is about the erosion of wealth that occurs when the government attempts to redistribute it from those that earned it on the merits to those that did not.

Wealth tends to exhibit a type of “soap-bubble property” in that it is dissipated when the government attempts to appropriate and redistribute it. This erosion occurs because wealth appropriation destroys the incentives that are the sine qua non for a prosperous market economy. Socialist redistribution policies quite literally kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Is Capitalism Doomed? Churchill’s admonition that “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.” should be taken with the utmost seriousness. Despite its many virtues, including innovation, efficiency, and dynamism, capitalism can make no credible claim to fairness in the distribution of wealth. The risk is that the superiority of capitalism in terms of its robust incentives to build better mousetraps and create wealth will fall prey to the growing dissatisfaction of the voters with the distribution of its yield.

The uncomfortable truth is that capitalism as an economic system may not survive in a political equilibrium in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top. The available economic policy measures present something of a Hobson’s choice. To save capitalism from the dire throes of socialism it may ultimately prove necessary to practice a less pure form of it.

by Dennis L. Weisman at americanthinker.com on November 7, 2025

and Gary Salsbury at americanthinker.com on November 8, 2025