Sharp Drop in American Enthusiasm for Free Market, Poll Shows April 6, 2011
American public support for the free market economy has dropped sharply in the past year, and is now lower than in China, according to a GlobeScan poll released today.
The findings, drawn from 12,884 interviews across 25 countries, show that there has been a sharp fall in the number of Americans who think that the free market economy is the best economic system for the future.
When GlobeScan began tracking views in 2002, four in five Americans (80%) saw the free market as the best economic system for the future--the highest level of support among tracking countries. Support started to fall away in the following years and recovered slightly after the financial crisis in 2007/8, but has plummeted since 2009, falling 15 points in a year so that fewer than three in five (59%) now see free market capitalism as the best system for the future.
GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller commented: "America is the last place we would have expected to see such a sharp drop in trust in the free enterprise system. This is not good news for business."
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http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btglobalizationtradera/684.php?nid=&id=&pnt=684&lb=