This is a marketing exercise. As a retired marketing executive, if someone brought this product, Socialism, to me and asked me how to sell the product to the majority of Americans, this is how I would set the marketing strategy.
First, assess the competition, Capitalism, how do we take market share from Capitalism? Capitalism has been the product of choice for America since the Constitution framed the country with those freedoms. This is a big challenge to take the country from Capitalism.
The alternative product, Socialism, has a bad track record. It will be hard to get a majority of the public to buy the product. Statistics show only 35% of the buyers(voters) are Liberals, or those who favor Socialism. There is a big block of Independents who may lean toward Capitalism but could be convinced to buy the new product. This is the target market.
How do we gain share? First, we must create an economic disaster. Grow unemployment, destroy manufacturing, increase government spending to show how much we can help those we disabled. The more people we can make dependent on government spending, the more we gain.
Advertising is important. Since we own the media this works in our favor. We just feed them the right lines and they provide billions in free media time for Socialism.
Rebrand the product. Socialism as a brand, will never sell here. We will call it change and hope.
Next, work on the so-called thought leaders. Educators, Hollywood, the arts, and those who can influence children, university students, and those who don’t think for themselves. We have that now.
We must gain control of the levers that determine the direction the country takes. We have that now. We need a great communicator who can convince the buyers that Socialism( hope and change) is a better product than free enterprise and Capitalism. Remember, we can’t call it Socialism. Again, we have that now.
Now start pulling the levers. Regulation. Don’t let the free enterprise system work. Don’t let entrepreneurs do their thing. Regulate them. No drilling, no nuclear, no auto industry without the heavy hand of regulation, no mining, no heavy production, no chemical business, regulate, regulate, regulate. Wreak havoc on the financial sector, the one growing area of the GDP.
Create the nanny state. Get more and more Americans dependent on government. Grow government jobs. Increase government spending. Redistribute the wealth. Get the whole country dependent on the government for health care.
Blame all the fallout of this on Capitalism. Deflect the true causes since we have the media to help.
We have it. Despite long odds, we can turn this Queen Mary on a dime. Keep pulling the right levers. Just keep a wary eye on those damned Independents. They can still upset our apple cart. If they vote us out before we get everything in such a deplorable state that they need us, we’re home free.
There you have it. A foolproof marketing strategy to make the United States a Socialist country.
Are you buying?
Tags: economy, Energy, Marketing socialism, media, socialism, unemployment
Great article. What you have has worked very well in Chicago, New York, and the large CA. cities. The Socialist have have had a lot of practice in the last few years in our large cities and states. The questions is will Texas and many of the southern and other farm states buy this. If they are smart, they will threaten to succeed, then succeed if things do not change.
Love the title to the piece!
Selling socialism to a population requires that the population be made unable to reason and collectively understand history and economics. The teachers unions have dutifully done their part! Obama and this crop of Democrats are just the closers. This effort has been going on for quite some time.
Thanks for the compliment. It seems our leaders think old, tired, failed ideas can work because they are so smart they can make them work. Baloney.
Bill Robertson
I think there needs to be a mixture of capitalism and socialism to really work well.
For example, in the US we have public libraries, public schools, public transportation, public universities, public parks, publicly run police, fire department and highway patrol. We have a nationally publicly funded military. and the vast majority of our roads and highways public.
This list of publicly financed entities goes on and on.
I like the fact that I can choose between the post office and fed ex depending on the cost and my needs. To have just one or the other would severely limit my choices.
It would be tough for most Americans if they could only send their kids to private school at $15000 a year. Or if They could only go to private university at $40000 a year?
The “either or options” are seldom the best.
Socialism mixed with capitalism seems to work best.
That’s why socialist countries are adopting more free market capitalism..and why the US needs a public option in health care
“Capitalism has been the product of choice for America since the Constitution framed the country with those freedoms.”
Hmmmm…… I thought the Constitution brought us democracy and the rule of law. There is no mention of capitalism anywhere in the Constitution.
“Statistics show only 35% of the buyers(voters) are Liberals, or those who favor Socialism.”
Silly to suggest that all Democrats (33% in the most recent Gallup poll on party affiliation) are liberals. Outrageous to suggest that liberals are automatically those that favor socialism just as it would be to suggest that the 27% who identify themselves as Republicans favor facism.
But this is the one I really like…. “How do we gain share? First, we must create an economic disaster. ”
This “economic disaster” that you speak of was created by Republicans! Republicans controlled the White House for the last 8 years and the Congress for 12 out of the last 14 years!! The current administration is simply trying to clean up the massive mess left by so many years of Republican mismanagement!
Great, I’ve made my first sale. A confirmed Socialist. Thanks for the business. Now, only a few hundred million more to go and we’re there.
Bill Robertson
When did things really go bad? We were dong well until we elected a democrat congress. Good old Nancy and Harry, are the two reasons that that things are so bad and getting worse.