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Funny thing is I would bet that if you cited examples of common social welfare services you would find support for "socialism" to be MUCH higher.
Sewers, safe water systems, fire and police departments, public schools, public roads and on and on. People like their services and all of those services are forms of socialism.
That's why the free market purists and anarchic libertarians will always remain on the fringes of American political life.
Really the only people I see who really favor pure capitalism are Asperger's cases who have a desperate fixation on simple, consistent systems regardless of how practically unworkable that system might be..

Depends on what is considered socialism.
The most interesting thing about that poll was the age breakdown.

Pariah wrote:

Funny thing is I would bet that if you cited examples of common social welfare services you would find support for "socialism" to be MUCH higher.
safe water systems, public roads,

Necessary and proper despite city size

Sewers, fire and police departments

Optional, necessity is based on city size and local concerns. A town near me has only a volunteer fire department. There are a few places with no local law or only a Sheriff. Some places just don't need the larger services. A few small cities still run septic tanks, although I think sewers are necessary and proper in the larger cities. That said, one of my large city relatives has a septic tank.

public schools,

Trash, electricity

The common complaint is when the use of these services becomes mandatory. See the fight over homeschooling as an example. Having seen city trash efficiency vs private business efficiency, I am anti city trash as well.
YMMV.

radarman wrote:

Define capitalism and socialism. More importantly, ask the poll respondents to define them. I suspect it would be an interesting exercise.

Of course.  But I think the "value" of this poll, as it is, is to see if the distorted views of "socialism" in the media right now is gaining traction with "the people."  And to see if politicians need to care about this "omg Obama socialism" nonsense.

Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.

but the results are rather meaningless -

The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism

The issue is that most capitalists will agree that some degree of socialism is necessary AND good.

Furthermore, I don't think there is a "universally best" type of government. Reading about the local Wintu tribe - their form of government probably is not well suited for an industrial society, but I'm actually rather fond of the way they did things before white man came and brought them the measles.

isaly wrote:

Do you know of any private fee for service garbage collection firms? How expensive do you think that would be given the realities of actually doing business for such a firm, advertising, route planning, having to either accept or turn down subscribers in areas where there isn't enough business to make it worth the trip. . .

That's all we have here.
It costs me $18 a month to get 4, 55 gal barrels emptied.
The big roll off at my brothers bodyshop is like $40/month.
Both places are in the country.

isaly wrote:

Do you know of any private fee for service garbage collection firms? How expensive do you think that would be given the realities of actually doing business for such a firm, advertising, route planning, having to either accept or turn down subscribers in areas where there isn't enough business to make it worth the trip. . .

Are you kidding? They're all over the place. Most garbage collection in the U.S. is private and for-profit. The more rural the area, the more likely it is that the private services are your only option. It's generally only a public service in more densely populated areas, mostly cities. You seem to have it backwards.

I had to pay Waste Management to pick up my trash when my house was in the county.

Now that my house has been taken into the city, Waste Management still picks up my trash, only that they are paid by the city out of my taxes.

user wrote:

I had to pay Waste Management to pick up my trash when my house was in the county.

Hence the prevalence of burn piles out in the country.

It isn't lack of no burn policy - they encourage burning out in the country.
Without allowing burn piles, getting rid of brush would be nearly impossible resulting in larger fires.

Yeah, some object to the "green house" gasses produced - but that's ignorance, vast majority of CO2 from a burn pile is carbon that was taken out of the atmosphere recently. Increased CO2 levels are the result of taking old carbon out of the ground and burning it, not carbon already in the cycle.

resedit wrote:

It isn't lack of no burn policy - they encourage burning out in the country.
Without allowing burn piles, getting rid of brush would be nearly impossible resulting in larger fires.

Yeah, some object to the "green house" gasses produced - but that's ignorance, vast majority of CO2 from a burn pile is carbon that was taken out of the atmosphere recently. Increased CO2 levels are the result of taking old carbon out of the ground and burning it, not carbon already in the cycle.

Particulates are a more real environmental concern than gasses.

...unless you're in redneck land and the burns involve tires and so on.