system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why does socialism have such a bad reputation in the United States?
gpt
*A little backstory.*  This country was fairly recently founded in a grand, open space representing an unprecedentedly vast Empire of untapped natural resources.  At that time, a highly-developed Europe first began to see that their resources could be exhausted.  Sure, there were exotic luxuries like tobacco and pelts, but in the 18th century, one of the most common exports to Europe was wood...not because it was prized or exotic, but because Europe was strapped for lumber, and needed as much as they could find to build...everything.   Things got so bad that many British cabinet makers used to break up and reclaim shipping containers for use as building materials, long before anyone touted the virtue of recycling. 

Now, crossing the Atlantic and taming the wilderness was dangerous business.  Many died just during the trip.  But, the developed world needed to import its resources, and was willing to pay a hefty sum to any fool willing to wander West and set up anything, be it a farm, shop, mine, smithy, trading post, or lumber yard.  Any idiot willing to risk death and work out there was, therefore, a valuable commodity, and handsome rewards including free land, government office positions, and substantial wealth were made available to entice would-be prospecters, etc. This created a situation in the new world where you literally could say **"Anyone willing to work hard can be a success."**  This idea has, historically, become a defining trait of the new world, which Americans take pride in, assuming that it is due solely to their democratic system of government, not an accident of the global economy.  

Capitalism is a monetary system based on this idea.  If you believe anyone who isn't cowardly or lazy has a straightforward, attainable path to financial self-sufficiency (and all that is possible because we overthrew the monarchy), then you believe in Capitalism.   The idea is that, the less government interferes, the more opportunity business will provide, and anyone who is too lazy to take part should suffer...because that will motivate them, and they will succeed! 

Now, 250-300 years later, in a highly organized, thickly settled nation that imports more than it exports, outsources jobs to the lowest bidder, and has a vast untapped resource of qualified applicants, the mere will to work hard is not so highly prized.  Anyone who wants to build up a comfortable level of wealth today has got to find a way to make themselves particularly marketable...or needs to be positioned in such a way that they start out with ample capital and knowledge to entirely skip the stage of working to survive.  Nonetheless, our national cultural consciousness still remembers the old adage that anyone willing to work can make it here, and even those who live hand-to-mouth think their big break is coming.  We regard those who need help as lazy, because they must not be willing to work in the Land of Opportunity.  Therefore, we despise any system that redistributes to the poor because we see it as a force that limits our vast opportunity by penalizing success and rewarding laziness.  

**TL;DR There used to be great work available for anyone who wanted it, and we learned to regard those who didn't succeed as lazy, so we don't like a system that helps the lazy at the expense of the productive.**