Capitalism, Socialism, and the Christian’s Hope: Reading the Gallup Poll Like Disciples

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. Today, Nate and I are going to be discussing a Gallup poll that came out recently. It actually shows, it's on perceptions of capitalism and how many Americans actually view capitalism as favorable. And essentially, what the study showed is that the needle moved from 60% of people who view capitalism as favorable in 2021 to 54% viewing it as favorable in 2025. So it's still a majority. But within that data, there's a lot of interesting sort of differences between various groups. And there's a range of differences between things like race and gender and age, political stance, all of those normal factors that a survey like this would look at. And it's just an interesting study. And so I thought we might talk about it today and not to defend capitalism, not to advance socialism, which was the other ism that they, you know, sort of address in this study, but just to talk a little bit about where are we placing our hope? And I think that what we want to try to do is, since the podcast is called Thinking Christian, we should probably try to think Christian about this. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. Nate, thanks for joining the show again. And glad we can have this conversation. Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to learn and to dive into it with you and kind of just think about that, because I feel like growing up, even just 10, 15 years ago, all these isms that you're talking about weren't as dominantly in our conversation, but it's like all around now. So, well, and it's really interesting because, you know, you say that, like we would have grown up in the, like I would have grown up in the 80s and 90s. You would have too. And if you look at the data in the study, like 62% of people above 55 and over, right? So getting to be my age, I mean, I'm going to turn 48 pretty soon, but definitely my parents' age, the 62% of them have a favorable view of capitalism. And so it seems like maybe what's happening is that as we're growing up, this isn't an issue because there's a broad consensus among this age group. Now I think the statistics remain pretty clear. I did look back at some of the previous studies Gallup had done on this. And so you do see a fairly even shift kind of coming across with capitalism. But if you compare that to 18 to 34 year olds, you know, 62% of 55 and over, only 43% of those between the ages of 18 and 34 have a favorable view of capitalism. And so the age group right in between us, right? We are, our age group didn't fare quite as well. I don't have that statistic right in front of me, but the disparity between the 55 year olds and the 18 to 34 year olds was actually pretty drastic on capitalism. Wow. Yeah. It's really interesting though, when you look at the numbers, so you had two categories, free enterprise, which I honestly, I had to kind of look up, right? What's the difference between capitalism and free enterprise? And it turns out free enterprise is sort of a component of capitalism. It's usually contained within it. Free enterprise scored really well with almost everybody. It's a 92% favorability. And even the variations within the data, like, you know, between, let's say whites versus non-whites, whites saw it as 84% favorable, non-whites saw it as 76% favorable. And so while that's a pretty significant, significant difference percentage-wise, it's still a vast majority. I mean, you're talking a little bit more than three quarters of non-whites viewing free enterprise as favorable. And then small business was even better. I mean, it was 92% favorable. And so you see these different components, right? Within that are sort of associated with or are adjacent to capitalism that people still view as very favorable. And you don't see increases in favorability for something like socialism, which is usually sort of pitted right against capitalism, right? So aside from the Democratic folks who go up one percentage point from 65 to 66%, everybody else was, I mean, Republicans were 14%, I think, and independents were somewhere in the 40s for favorability. And so you just, like, you're not seeing a clear picture. Yes, there's an erosion of, you know, maybe the shine is off the pot, right? Like capitalism isn't quite the shiny new toy that we used to think it was. But we're also not drifting necessarily straight toward a different sort of ism. There's this weird variability within it, where it seems to me after reading the study and looking at all the data, what people are really searching for is we need to reform, not necessarily replace. I'm wondering about those people that were just don't really, you said there was a percentage of people there that just don't know. Do you think people are less likely to be informed themselves and to research, or do you think they kind of just fall into peer pressure for the people around their communities, their family, people they work with, or maybe just what they constantly get seen, get fed to them from the media? Do you think that that's a factor? Yeah. I mean, I think this is one of the real interesting parts of what I'm seeing in the data. And obviously when Gallup does this, they talk about the question is something like, just give your first impression of, you know, capitalism, socialism, free enterprise, small business, big business. And they have those categories sort of laid out, but it's meant to be first impression, right? And so it's almost like a word association game. You're not necessarily asking people if they fully grasp what they're talking about when you say capitalism, right? And I think that's why you see the differences in, you know, with free enterprise and small business, right? And so what you, what we tended to see was that capitalism was viewed a little less favorably. Big business has never been viewed favorably, oddly. And what I found fascinating was big business wasn't even viewed favorably by people who made a hundred thousand dollars a year or more household income. It's just never really been a favorable thing, which I found fascinating. Right. And so, but it is part of capitalism, at least the way we've construed capitalism in the United States. And that's what sort of leads me to believe that we're not seeing a move toward socialism necessarily, right? The data in this particular study wouldn't bear that out, but we are seeing a movement to say, look, we want free enterprise. We want more small business. We want big business, you know, big business is far less favorable to us. Maybe we want to tolerate that, but we, we see it as at best, maybe a necessary evil, something around that. I'm trying to put a narrative to the data that I'm seeing, which is always a little dangerous. But I would just say, you know, it is really a reform movement is what it seems like is needed. The differences in, in gender were fascinating. You know, women tended to be less favorable of capitalism than males. You're talking 45% versus 63%. Wow. Yeah. So big, big differences and big disparities. And, and when you just look at those stats, you're kind of sitting there going, yeah, no matter what you, what the causes are, whether it's media bias or whether it's just, you know, people's lived experience, I don't think we should discount that. Some people are going to have a different relationship to the economic systems that we exist in than others. And so while I think it's absolutely right for us to sort of push back on some of the more generalizations of that, we sometimes see on the news or what have you there, we probably shouldn't dismiss it altogether. I think people have different experiences within our economy and that's an important, important thing to note. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty. 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6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And some people, I think, more and more, at least what I'm seeing in my circles, are afraid to even speak their mind on some of these topics because nobody wants to offend, nobody wants to be labeled or put in a category. I feel that pressure, especially on social media. Like I've told you many times before, and I think you're the same way, I will never engage in, like, arguments, even if it seems constructive, even if it seems like it's going to be beneficial. It never has been for me, and I've never really seen it be beneficial, so I just stay out of that. I still certainly read it and, you know, check in and read comments sometimes, but I won't personally ever do that because I've never seen anyone change somebody's mind over social media. But it astounds me every single day how many people think they can. Well, I think part of the reason I don't do it is the reason you're expressing. I do think it's going to have a limited effectiveness. But I also think, and I'm writing a piece up for Christianity.com on this, but I'm increasingly thinking that we're just asking the wrong question. And so if the question is framed, is capitalism a good system? Or, you know, should we be capitalist or socialist? Or, you know, whatever, which given the differences between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, it seems like that's a really high potential framing for this sort of question. Is capitalism or socialism better? You're talking about a pretty strong majority of Democrats seeing socialism favorably. And this year was the first year that a majority of Democrats, or at least 50% of Democrats, didn't view capitalism favorably. They hit 42% only viewed capitalism favorably. And so what you're seeing is probably what's going to be, what could play out on a Republican-Democrats sort of debate stage is Republicans being strongly in favor of capitalism, Democrats being strongly in favor of socialism, and sort of everybody else who's not involved there, right? All of us who have this sort of other opinion on the matter, getting kind of lost in the political polarization. And so when I sort of look at this data and read this study, my thinking ultimately goes to, we are just asking the wrong question. It seems to me like the right questions maybe are, if we were to switch or reform a system, could we make our lives better? Yes, I think we could. I think reform is probably the right conversation to be having, but I would even say beyond that, I would just say, where are we putting our hope? You know, if we look at these systems, the systems themselves are probably philosophically abstracted from any sort of concrete reality, is what I mean when I say philosophically. They're probably okay. You know, I don't know that I hate the idea of socialism, right? I think in its concrete instantiations, we've seen a lot of abuses and problems and issues that roll out there, and I think we could say the same about capitalism, right? As a theory, I don't know, maybe it makes a good bit of sense, but when it's implemented in a concrete world, we now have to deal with distortions and deviations from an ideal. And so any structure, any system that we put in place, in my estimation, we shouldn't be looking for utopia. We should be doing it because we want to improve one area and are willing to improve that area, right, while probably causing other areas to decline. There's always a good effect for sure. Yeah, it's almost like touching a baby's mobile, right? You pull one side down, it's a guarantee the other sides move, and sometimes in ways that you can't quite predict, right? But you know it's going to move. And I think the same thing with these systems. If we're thinking that changing these systems will automatically, you know, make our lives better, I'm not sure that's really the case. I think it makes them differently good and differently bad. I think about like a conveyor belt. If you focus on one because it needs attention, then the other areas are going to start to be dropping plates. I think that's fair. Yeah, that's a good analogy. It's just that's what I think is going to end up happening. And so, to me, the compelling issue here is, what kind of question should we be asking? And I would have really loved, and they don't show this in the data, but I would have really loved to see some sort of religious affiliation question in there, so you can understand, is there a generalized Christian view of these things? But all I would say is, do I have a positive view of capitalism? Do I have a positive view of socialism? Not necessarily. Like I said, as abstract systems, I don't really even know that I'm qualified to say yes on this one and no to this one. But what I can say is that every time we implement any sort of rigid system, we decide we're going to be this sort of people, it tends to obscure, for Christians at least, it has a tendency to obscure our identity in Christ. We tend to start molding in capitalism with Christianity, socialism with Christianity, or you name any other 'ism, and that's where it tends to... Republicanism, you know, being a Democrat. Whatever it is, right? It tends to get molded in to what it means to be a Christian. And I think this is where we see, you know, we've talked a lot about Christian nationalism on the show. I would say that that's an instantiation of merging these questions too closely. Same with evangelicals for Harris. It doesn't just happen on the conservative side, right? It also happens on the liberal side. And so, I would just advocate as we're looking at research like this, that the questions we ought to be asking is maybe something like, what really gives our lives meaning? Right. And purpose. Yeah, how do we think about how the world works with the understanding that God is active and present in it? And if God is active and present with us in it, and we're sort of co-creating along with him what our lives look like, trusting him, obeying him, recognizing that our obedience is going to open up new ways of seeing the world, open up new ways of understanding how God acts in tandem with us and helps us, gives us true provision. I think that's what Christians need to be focusing on. And as they focus on that, I think that we'll have better insights into how to reform some of these systems. We're only going to gain wisdom if, you know, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It seems to me that we should be focusing on the fear of the Lord if we want to wisely, you know, sort of structure a broken world in a way that is quasi-just. Mm-hmm. Right? You know, in other words, what I mean when I say quasi, it's gesturing toward the justice of God, but it's never actually achieving it. Mm-hmm. And so, that's sort of my take on all of this, is that when we're framing the question about which economic, which political, which whatever system we're going to ascribe to, we've missed a step, probably. Right. And we need to go back and realize that humanity is fallen. These systems, structures, laws, all those kind of things, to some degree, just restrain the evil that human beings are going to do. Right. It doesn't stop that. It doesn't eliminate poverty or, you know, bad actors or whatever. None of it does. Right. And so, the only thing that's going to do that is regeneration through Jesus Christ, preaching the gospel, building of the kingdom of God. And so, Christians just, it's not that we never address these issues, it's that I think we have to address them as a downstream from discipleship, right? These are opinions. Our thoughts, our actions need to emerge from a life of discipleship in these areas so that, you know, the church is being built for the sake of the world. Right. Yeah. And I think it's important to mention, man, like, we've talked a great deal about this, but like, where you said many times already today, where is your hope in? Like what, we're asking the wrong questions and we're putting hope and faith in the wrong thing. I know so many Christians, as probably you do too, if Trump wouldn't have got in this last election,

Like they let that kind of be the barometer of like what the if they feel like God's in control or not. Do you think God needs the left or the right? He doesn't need one certain purpose. Like our hope and faith should be in him, not in our if our guy's in, not if our party is or our, you know, our agendas or what we want is is happening or taking place. I think our hope and faith needs to be in Jesus. Otherwise, you're putting him in a box and you're like, well, we didn't get in this time, so we'll just wait and hopefully we'll do a better job in four years. Like what does that say? How much you put your hope and faith in God or if you put it in a system? Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up and many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. That's right, and I think when we look biblically, there's only a few places that really address what I would call structure, right? And so when we look at something with a governing structure, as Israel is coming out of the period of the judges, they're dealing with Samuel, who is the main judge in Israel at the time, this is the book of 1 Samuel. Samuel's kids are not great. They're manipulating things. They're doing things for their own, you know, pursuing their own interests as part of their vocation. And so Israel comes to Samuel and they say, we'd really like to have a king. We're sort of done with this whole, who's going to be the next judge thing. We'd like more stability. We'd like a clearer understanding of who's responsible, when they're going to be responsible. Like, that's what they're asking for when they're asking for a king, right? They're looking at the earthly structure that's been set up. And they're saying, this doesn't work for us. Samuel initially pushes back. Ultimately, God says, hey, look, they're not rejecting you. They're rejecting me. They're rejecting me as king over them. So give them their king. It's fine. But when Samuel announces that to the people, he describes what's going to end up happening. And basically what he says is, look, your problem was never the judges. Your problem has always been obedience. You had to fear the Lord then and keep his laws and his statutes. And guess what? Now that you have a king, king has to fear the Lord and you have to fear the Lord. The structure changes. The underlying dynamic doesn't. And I think that's something that we really need to capture as Christians. We need to understand that God's going to move the pieces around on the world stage. You know, I'm sure the Israelites were not going to, you know, democratically elect Nebuchadnezzar to come in and take over Israel during the exile. But God saw that as a necessary correction and a discipline for where Israel had been going. He actually calls Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar his servant. And then when Persia comes in, Cyrus is actually called his anointed or Messiah. Mashiach is the Hebrew term. And so you see that in the book of Isaiah. And so he's using these pagan rulers to sort of move things around. But the underlying dynamics of Israel never changes. If you want to be in, you know, if you want to be an Israelite and you're following covenant, your first priority is always fear the Lord, obey his laws, keep his commandments, remain faithful, remain faithful even unto death. We see that all across the book of Daniel. And so as we think about some of these things, as we're, you know, that's what I guess I mean. Maybe it's more when we're asking these questions about our structures, which is totally appropriate. What we need to remember as God's people is that the governing dynamics never really change. Whether we shift to socialism or stay with capitalism and make some tweaks, our job is always fear the Lord, walk in his ways, imitate Christ, conform to his image. That's what we do. And that sort of movement in scripture, that there isn't a biblically authorized form of government as far as I can tell. Right. The biblically authorized form of government is a theocracy, but not in the sense that that's often used in Christian nationalism. The theocracy is God's people who have come under the authority of the King Jesus Christ, serving the Lord in the kingdom of God, regardless of the consequences that that has when they rub up against the other empires of the earth. And so, you know, those are the sort, that's the framework we need to come with when we're looking at these different systems. And I'm just convinced that as we do that, we are going to come with a different set of eyes, a different set of ears, and a higher degree of wisdom in trying to sort of sort through some of these things. Yeah, because you're focusing on the right thing and kind of removing emotion from it. That's right. Because you have a central point that everything's coming back to and coming out of. And I think that's what's missing here. People are putting their hope and faith in the wrong thing as well. One, I think there's just a realistic expectation that this brings, and only for Christians. I won't even say especially for Christians. It's only for Christians. It puts this in perspective that changing our economic systems isn't trivial. It can be very important, right? It can be something worthy of doing. And yet it's very provisional. And so the church doesn't do it because it's seeking to establish a utopia on earth. The church does it in response to the word of God. It does it because it's the right thing to do, regardless of whether it's effective or not. And I think sometimes, you know, when I look at the study like what Gallup put out, there are aspects of this where I suppose maybe cynically, and I know I'm kind of reading into the data a little bit, but what it makes me think is, we're all sort of voting from our own experience and voicing our opinion based on what we think will make our lives a little more comfortable. And I would just argue that that perspective, that approach is way wrongheaded, especially when we think about the governing dynamics that the Bible shows us, that Christians are to be obedient, even obedient unto death, even obedient unto inconvenience. And if we adopted that posture and just said, we're going to do what's right, we're going to do what God is calling us to do. We're going to do what seems appropriate and fitting theologically, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us. We're living in a very different world at that point. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. That's a great point. So it's an interesting article. Like I said, I'll have the write-up in Christianity.com. I'd encourage people to go over and read it. And I don't know, we don't need to beat a dead horse. I think we can probably stop it there, but we'll have the link to the Gallup poll article and all that kind of good stuff in the show notes. If you wanted to look through the data, you can actually download the PDF and get more granular in some of the data that they presented, which is kind of nice. But just an interesting study that kind of came across the old interwebs and it caught my eye. And I thought it was just kind of interesting. So yeah, appreciate your interaction with it, Nate, and we'll leave it there unless you have any other thoughts. No, I think that's good, man. It definitely was an interesting topic. I certainly want to go and look at the data myself. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, we'll call it a day there. Thanks for listening to Thinking Christian. 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