How many socialists are there in the United States?

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

I'm sure a lot of people have wondered this in the past. Even though I no longer consider myself one of them, I have long pondered this question. Are there any studies that suggest a definite number or percentage?

[Ken Burch]

1. The percentage of those who self-identify as "socialist" is quite low

However, the percentage who don't yet hold beliefs that are at least related to socialism(such as support for single-payer health care or a desire to reduce the role large corporations play in the political process)is considerably higher.

This is largely due, I suspect, to the success of "anticommunist" propaganda, with its insistence that any form of collectivist or redistributive economics or economic democracy would somehow inevitably lead to a U.S. that was nothing more than an oversize replica of the German Democratic Republic.