U.S. Support For 'Free Market' Capitalism Drops Below China, Brazil, Poll Finds

Nearly three years after the financial system first came perilously close to collapse, American support for an unregulated free market appears to have cratered.

A new report by GlobeScan, an international opinion research consultancy, suggests that the number of Americans who believe in the strength of the free market economy dropped markedly last year. In fact, according to the survey results, both Brazil and China, on a percentage basis, ranked higher than the U.S. in overall support for free market capitalism.

The report, released this week and based on 12,884 interviews in 25 countries, asked participants to agree or disagree with the statement that the "free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world."

GlobeScan found Americans strongly agreeing or somewhat agreeing dropped to 59 percent from 74 percent, a 15 percent dip from the year prior and the second largest year-over-year drop of any country besides Turkey. An even more dramatic drop (32 percent drop) occurred among those in the U.S. with annual incomes below $20,000, of which only 44 percent agreed that the free market was the ideal system.

When GlobeScan first compiled this data in 2002, 80 percent of Americans answered that the free market was the best economic system for the future, then the highest percentage among all surveyed countries.

"America is the last place we would have expected to see such a sharp drop in trust in the free enterprise system," GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller said in a press release. "This is not good news for business."

Immediately after the financial crisis, GlobeScan actually found a slow but steady increase in U.S. support for the free market. Miller, however, attributes that temporary uptick to the country's "tremendous social cohesion" following sustained shocks such as financial collapse or terrorists attacks. "But after a while, after the hardship is sustained," he continues, "it has caught up with Americans."

The U.S. drop-off means merging economies like Brazil (68 percent support for free economy) and China (67 percent) now appear to support free enterprise at a much higher rate than Americans. India, with a 58 percent freemarket approval rate, roughly matched the U.S. results. Among participants in all countries, 54 percent said free market capitalism is the best economic system for the future -- the same percentage as one year prior.

The total percentage of Americans that don't trust the free market remains unchanged at 26 percent.

The below chart maps by year the percentage of Americans and Chinese that strongly agree or somewhat agree that the "free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world":

Comments

[DAE]

02:26 AM on 04/27/2011

The Chinese accept the "free market" economy so readily because the "socialist market" economy is working so well to raise living standards particularly in the eastern coastal urban areas. I don't think they really see the distinction between the two. Also there are many examples of enterprising peasants and workers who have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps to become very wealthy. In fact the "American Dream" is more realizable in today's China than the USA. In actual fact the Chinese have a developing socialist economy that uses the market as a mechanism to allocate resources and regulate supply and demand. But the "invisible hand" of the market is manipulated by the state. In China the state controls the corporations. In the US the corporations control the state. There is a big difference. The Chinese model can be characterized as "state capitalism" and Chinese economic theorists recognize this fact. But they see it as a stage in the process leading to socialism. History shows that capitalism despite all its faults is the quickest and most efficient way to unleash a societies productive forces. Lenin said, "state capitalism, (in the Soviet Union under the New Economic Policy)... is a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class." and "without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable." China, which to start with, was more underdeveloped than Russia, is doing exactly what Lenin would've done if he had lived.

[AZreb]

10:24 AM on 04/11/2011

Of course China supports the "free trade" - they charge up to 30% import fees on products from our country. What does Brazil charge in import fees?

While we, in our utter disregard for our own country's products, merrily allow imports from other countries to flood our markets with few fees.

[RioBORG]

03:02 PM on 04/24/2011

Brazil does charge 60% import fees on american products. I am not kidding!!.

[I read the articles]

09:39 PM on 04/10/2011

It's about time the American people begin to realize that this free market system is BS.

[aliblues]

01:08 PM on 04/10/2011

Another survey for simple brains, really it should be asked as one of the readers here suggests,(DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS KIND OF FREE MARKET SYSTEM IN THE USA WITH ITS EVIDENT CONSEQUENCES FOR THE MIDDLE TO WORKING CLASS SEGMENTS OF OUR SOCIETY?).
As we all very well know, the wall street rules the country, they are pretty clever , keeping the majority of the American public in an absolute ignorance about politics and economics.
The top brass in wall street provoked this devastating situation, never the less non of these criminals has been punished for what they have done.
Their friends (moody´s & co..) kept giving them OK for their so called structured products, and the world over fall for it.
any way I do suggest for people who are interested to better our world, should read the books by SUSAN GEORGE, Whose Crisis, Whose Future? or Hijacking America: How the Secular and Religious Right Changed What Americans Think.

[builderman55]

11:01 AM on 04/10/2011

WE DON'T HAVE A FREE MARKET ECONOMY! We have a government supported corporatocracy where all the normal rules have been suspended or turned on their heads. Run a company intonthe ground? Get a huge golden parachute to go away. Crash the global economy? Get taxpayer bailouts then pay yourselves bonuses with it and hoard the cash. Then invest in other coutries while unemployment stays high. Commit massive fraud? Receive no punishment. This system STINKS.

[AZreb]

10:25 AM on 04/11/2011

fanned - big time.

[inkoperated]

11:54 AM on 04/11/2011

So true!
Someone's got to pay for the now-unlimited spending on campaigns....hence the politicians are indebted to corporate interests and much less to the people. Lobbying is out of control and most corporate interests are deeply embedded in the regulatory agencies that are supposed to watch the industries.

What's surprising is that they seem to know no boundaries when it comes to wanting more and more and more. It's not enough to make gross margins of profit on bad products, when they can write laws that automatically give them access to taxpayer money (where there is no freedom of choice). It's like letting the wolves watch over the hen house.

[builderman55]

07:20 PM on 04/11/2011

"Power, like the grave, is always grasping." Abigail Adams. We are at such a critical juncture--the corporate/government alliance has fundamentally altered the proper balance of power in our country. And, bizarrely, there is the weird Fundamentalist Christian alliance that goes along with it in the GOP. People should remember that is is always painful and wrenching to take power back from people who have gotten too much of it. I hope people are paying attention...

[mashtoe]

09:35 PM on 04/09/2011

What the Chinese have shown us is that capitalism works best under communism. And it seems we are moving further and further towards Chinese style state control: bailouts for Wall Street, bailouts for GM, farm subsidies, work visas like H-1B which is direct federal interference in the labor market, narrowly written one-sided free trade deals that only benefit a few well connected industries, frequency give aways (NBC, ABC, and CBS each are granted for free specrum), federal investments in R&D (corporations, NASA, NIH, public and private universities) which is then handed over to private corporations, and massive massive levels of military spending to prop up corporations in every state and every district in the nation. And then there all the regulations designed to impede competition (patent law is a perfect example).

[Intolerantcentrist]

09:03 PM on 04/09/2011

The issues here is not the “Free Market”, but rather governments adherence in providing for its dominance within our society by subsidizing ; requiring the purchase of its services and products; and protecting its more powerful players from competition.

Yet to paraphrase the very conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist “nothing in the United States Constitution [. . .] requires [government] to hew to the teachings of Adam Smith [. . .]”

[mashtoe]

09:37 PM on 04/09/2011

Exactly, when Obama says something like "we have to ensure corporations have access to the best minds in the world" he is talking about expandind H-1B work visas....I just wish someone would for once ask him "why?" Why is it the federal government's job to ensure any such thing?

[Intolerantcentrist]

10:47 AM on 04/10/2011

To a large degree, it’s what they are paid to do; i.e. campaign contributions, cronyism…

[JamesJerico]

08:00 PM on 04/09/2011

When you put the word "free" into a survey you automatically skew the results from people who know little of what it's applied to; it seems the question that should be asked is do you support our current trade and market structure, which is anything but free.

[ColinMCCBC]

02:36 PM on 04/09/2011

This is a useless poll. First, you need to ask more specific questions then generalizing "is free market good or bad". Second, who are they interviewing... lets face it, unfortunately the average person in the US knows little to nothing about politics/economy. The way our "free market" operates is so complex, and likewise, is not such a free market. The government is VERY involved in business through regulation, funding, bail-outs, subsidies, etc... As someone said, peoples vote on this question stems from their perception of cultural, myths of what free market and capitalism entail. In addition, the average person is asked this question and votes based on the current situation of the economy. On another note, too much pluralism is not necessarily a good thing in government with regards to big corporations, but I read so often how people generalize big business as evil... its not. Someone said we are in a state of deregulation, really? I am pretty sure the government is in a state of increasingly monitoring, funding, and manipulating business. We've lost so much business to China because they are benefitting from a more free market economy then we are. Our gov't wants to raise the minimum wage, make it impossible to fire and layoff workers, and increasingly regulate business at the expense of efficiency... then wonders why we outsource jobs to China. The problem is finding a middle ground between a free, less pluralistic, and efficiently regulated market.

[RABSR]

06:21 PM on 04/09/2011

You saved me alot of time.....

To put a finer point on this "poll".......no one would be comfortable with a completely free market.

We have successfully operated under a "regulated free market" when that regulation is only intended to level the playing field and insure reasonable consumer safety practices.

We are now being strangled by this administration. Whether by accident or design or some combination of both, it is destroying the economic engine of this nation.

You would be hard pressed to view our current situation as anything approaching a "free market".

[muck-raker]

06:16 AM on 04/11/2011

RABSR excellent post F&F. The Fed in its attempt to help the Banks with a inflationary policy is really hurting the American consumer. its all going to end rather badly

[Iam12Vote]

06:57 AM on 04/11/2011

"We've lost so much business to China because they are benefittin­g from a more free market economy then we are."

That's just hilarious. We finally get to the truth by the back door. What you really want is a totalitarian regime to run things for the benefit of multinational corporations while the people are kept under control by the power of the state.

[inkoperated]

12:03 PM on 04/11/2011

Well put!

The book Shock Doctrine is an excellent source to get a perspective on the bigger picture. It demostrates how the gospel of "free market" was a way to institutionalize greed and then justified it with their "law of the jungle/survival of the fittest" ideology.

[Mister Grumpy]

01:12 AM on 04/09/2011

The term "Free Market" is another lie by the GOP......... there is no such thing as a "Free Market".

[stopthe]

11:03 PM on 04/08/2011

This is an almost useless survey. Free market means different things to different people. What Americans have experienced is the disolution of their formerly effective hybrid .There is no comparable free market in China to present the Chinese with an equivalent empirical experience. 
 
Americans are responding to the last thirty years of deconstruction of their previous thirty years of tempered free market experience. During the first thirty years the American middle class experienced 1-2% yearly growth while during the second deregulatory period the middle class has lost 5% in income.That coupled with the crash have given Americans a new found fear of unbridled markets.
 
The phrasing of the question as a choice between free markets or not ,renders the results nearly meaningless.It does hint at the countries disparate experiences but it avoids any nuance or any explanation of what level of hybridization each country associates with "free markets".
 
China on the other hand has been liberalizing.Changing from a tightly controled centralized market to a more opened less controled market. They have experienced great economic growth and mobility.But theirs is still a more tightly controled economy than the US brand

[nothing2fear]

10:03 PM on 04/08/2011

Apparently they are using "Free Market" in reference to an unbridled market in which anything a business feels like doing is A-OK. When most of us think of a Free Market we think I can start a business and compete, where competition is allowed. That is not what an unregulated market has given us. Of course we are disillusioned by the American managed markets where lobbyist work to get laws that limit competition and create entrance barriers to competition.





Then there are the laws that congress pass to protect profits for big corporations with subsidies, tax breaks or by just passing laws that cost the nation and consumer like those that prevent Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. Most industrial nations keep medical costs of their healthcare systems down by negotiating as do insurance companies. Today the US government never negotiates for the tax payer. It ain’t their money why bother?



I personally wish congress worked for the people rather than a few mega corporations that manage congress like cattle and treat the people worst. Viva a Social Democracy over the Capitalistic Democracy.

[HufferDave87]

09:24 PM on 04/08/2011

This poll is great news. The problem isn't that we have a free market capitalist system, it's that we've swung so far towards deregulation that we're heading toward feudalism. This country needs a dose of reality - the reality that free markets are good to an extent, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

[Mister Grumpy]

01:13 AM on 04/09/2011

You'll never get elected as a Republican with that attitude..........

[HufferDave87]

09:18 PM on 04/08/2011

A "free market" in the sense Adam Smith talked about had a lot going for it. The problem is that most people these days don't understsand the difference between the free market where the "invisible hand" operates on the one hand, and laissez-faire capitalism on the other.

The "classic" free market that Smith talked about was an ideal market where there were no barriers to entry, nearly unlimited sellers, and nearly unlimited buyers. Monopolies couldn't exist, and corporations didn't exist.

The truth is, extreme laissez-faire capitalists today claim to rely on Smith and other classicists, but they pick and choose which parts they rely on, and which they disregard. Smith wouldn't have supported monopolistic behavior and massive concentration of market power in the hands of one or a few firms.

[456098405602600590456012]

06:17 AM on 04/09/2011

I agree. Smith promoted regulation as a check on the sometimes insatiable driving force of capitalism: self interest. I believe.

[robadeaux]

07:10 PM on 04/08/2011

So many people do not understand the definitions of capitalism, corporatism, fascism, socialism or communism. Especially in the US, peoples definitions of any economic system are based on emotional reactions to cultural myths, not on reality.
When each of those "systems" are run by a very few who enrich themselves at the cost of decent lives for the public... well, really, what are the real differences?
None. None at all.
And, so many conflate economic systems with political systems...
They are not mutually exclusive, but they are not the same either.
Capitalism flourishes with a centralized political system that the capitalists can control tightly.
They are not benevolent and do not work for the good of the public, and so require government (We the People) to keep in place controls that reign in the capitalists natural propensity to reduce humans to a part of the production mix and disposable when worn out.
Corporatists are simply employees of capitalists...
Corporations are the mechanism of efficient organization in the use of capital, again, having nothing whatsoever to do with the public good or individual freedom.

Capitalism does not mean freedom. It does not mean equal opportunity. Our form of government is supposed to be designed "by the People, for the People"... but has been subverted through corruption to be "By the Corporation, For the Corporation". If you do not see that, you are not payiong attention. You let cultural myths do your thinking for you. How lazy.

[libertylobo]

07:17 PM on 04/08/2011

BS. Capitalism is the only system closest to being compatible with individual liberty. No other system can hold a candle to it. And you let cultural left-wing indoctrination from college cloud your thinking about those evil corporations. There are some bad corporations out there, but many started as mom and pop shops and small business owners. I own two small businesses and that would be a dream come true to take one of them or both public someday...that would mean substancial growth and success! I am not saying all corporations are good but I won't demonize all of them either.

[mashtoe]

09:23 PM on 04/09/2011

Capitalism is completely compatible with communism. China is a perfect example. And corporations are not private businesses. Only the government can create corporations because a corporation needs to have a fake person created called the corporate person. This corporate person is why you can't sue a corporation's owner...the owner was created by the government. That is how shareholders are immune to any and all liability.

[Soma99]

07:21 PM on 04/08/2011

Capitalism does not mean freedom. It does not mean equal opportunit y. Our form of government is supposed to be designed "by the People, for the People"

Not it's not, it's intent was to protect the property of the wealthy

[libertylobo]

07:22 PM on 04/08/2011

Isn't private property a human right? People should not have the right to defend their property from thieves and politicans?

[flossophy]

08:27 PM on 04/08/2011

Private property rights is the cornerstone of civilization. 

Why would you want to undermine it?