A Gallup poll released Monday reveals that Americans have a gradually decreasing estimation of capitalism since 2010, while socialism, on the other hand, is gaining more favor.
In 2010, 61 percent of Americans viewed capitalism positively, while in 2025 that number fell seven points to 54 percent. On the contrary, socialism is viewed by 39 percent as something positive, marking a three percent increase since 2010 (though this is the third time this poll category has reached 39 percent, which occurred in 2012 and 2019).
Further, Americans are growing less favorable toward “big business” as only 37 percent find its influence positive, showing a massive decline since its peak in 2012, when the poll found 58 percent with a positive view toward big business.
Gallup noted that certain contemporary political events could be prompting greater estimation of socialism among Americans over time. These surges in positivity toward socialism have occurred among the American left, particularly the younger members associated with that movement who have responded favorably toward politicians like Bernie Sanders and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
“Since 2016, more Democrats have held positive views of socialism than of capitalism, with the gap expanding to 24 points today,” Gallup explained. “Democrats’ more positive views of socialism occur at a time when many high-profile Democratic officials—most notably, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani—have identified themselves as Democratic socialists and advocated policies calling for a significantly expanded government role in economic matters.”
The poll results were based on the sampling strategy of questioning nearly 2,000 adults in the US during the month of August with a margin of sampling error of “±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.”
