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Pew Research has come out with a fantastic report on global attitudes – they just do a fantastic job of this work. Check out this article for a summary of the findings. I quote from another article they published on the topic.
A 47-nation 2007 Pew Global Attitudes survey found that, among the seven major world regions included in the study, support for free markets was lowest in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Across the six Eastern European countries surveyed — Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine — a median of 56% agreed with the statement “Most people are better off in a free market economy, even though some people are rich and some are poor.”
If you dig into the data, a few things start to emerge. Not surprisingly, both age and one’s perception of how one’s own fortunes have fared under “capitalism” are big drivers. However, I think that something more pernicious is at work. First, if you look at the other drivers, you’ll see that countries with lower support for capitalism have a higher concern about crime and corruption. How can we interpret those data? I suggest that a number of countries that are supposedly “free” in eastern Europe and Latin America actually have crony capitalist systems, which in many ways more resemble the Facism of pre-WWII Italy than of say 19th century Britain or 20th century U.S. What they are really saying is that they are not secure in their property and persons, which has nothing to do with “capitalism” and has everything to do with good government. Without a certain threshold of confidence in these basics, economic liberty will always falter because property rights are fundamental to being free.
I also think there is something even more destructive going on. How much effort is being put into educating people about what it means to be free in a democratic and free market society? One of the basic assumptions (although sadly it’s losing ground in the U.S.) is that the government isn’t the generator of prosperity. It’s individuals acting in their own interests, trading with each other that through the power of comparative advantage creates more wealth for everyone (see this link for a primer on this topic ). Populations of these countries may actually believe politicians when they say that they can create prosperity with their policies, just like the dictators of old did, when in fact the best the pols can do is clear the path for free enterprise to do what it does. Would that our own leaders spoke to the American people in this way, treating us like sentient adults instead of greedy children waiting for goodies from our parent/elected officials. Sadly. classical liberalism seem to be going the way of the do-do bird. The only group that remains faithful to these ideals are the libertarians, and libertarianism has a long way to go before enough people understand it, let alone support it.
