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View Full Version : World's Faith in Capitalism Erodes as Financial Crisis Continues: Survey



Hexen
13th July 2012, 20:52
Published on Friday, July 13, 2012 by Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org) World's Faith in Capitalism Erodes as Financial Crisis Continues: Survey


- Common Dreams staff

The financial crisis that has bred unemployment, austerity, and economic pain across the global for nearly fives years is also battering the reputation of the system many believe to be its main cause: "free market" capitalism.http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/econ0005.png
According to a new global poll (http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/12/pervasive-gloom-about-the-world-economy/) by Pew Research, only half or fewer -- in 11 of 21 nations surveyed -- now agree with the statement that people are better off in a "free market" economy than in some other kind.
In nine of the 16 countries for which there is trend data since 2007, before the financial crisis began, support for capitalism is down, with the greatest declines in Italy (down 23 percentage points) and Spain (down 20 points).
Support for capitalism is greatest in Brazil, China, Germany and the U.S, says the report. The biggest skeptics of the free market are in Mexico and Japan.
The survey found only four countries in which a majority of people were happy with and optimistic about the economic situation: China (83 percent), Germany (73 percent), Brazil (65 percent) and Turkey (57 percent). The Chinese are a particular exception to most of the questioning on economic optimism with Pew observing that, overall, the people of China -- which runs a single party, state-controlled economy -- "have been positive about their economy for the past decade."
The survey also showed that the prolonged global economic slump has depressed the public mood about their national economies. In only four of 21 countries surveyed does a majority say their economy is doing well.
Anger at government was shared in most countries, but banks and financial institutions were frequently – in Spain (78%), France (74%) and Germany (74%) – seen as the culprit behind the poor performance of national economies. And in two instances – France and Spain – significantly more of the public blamed the banks than blamed the government.
Read the full poll results here (http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/07/12/pervasive-gloom-about-the-world-economy/).


Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/13

Tim Cornelis
13th July 2012, 21:09
This is a silly poll: what is a free market? Surely all economies in the world have government regulation. If I look around, nobody I know or come across supports an actual free market, yet free markets in this poll are extremely popular. So are free markets equated with capitalism in this poll? That doesn't become clear, but it would make more sense (although then anti-capitalism would be too popular). Either way this poll makes little sense.

This poll, taken in 2009, makes much more sense (though still somewhat vague, since "different system" could be interpreted still as social-democracy, which seems to be the case looking at France where only 14% voted for an anticapitalist party/candidate). Anyway:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46684000/gif/_46684877_world_service_captial_466.gif

Also look at the contrast for Brazil in these two polls.

Teacher
14th July 2012, 04:12
Flawed polls but looks like us leftists in the U.S. have an uphill climb.