It turns out that 89% of people polled across 27 countries believe that the free market economy is not working well. This is very perplexing because the World economy seems to be doing pretty well. All the printed and borrowed money being pumped into the economies is helping fuel the jobless ‘recovery’. All these people complaining about capitalism not working need to see it from the perspective of the 11% that are benefiting from the misery of the rest of the population. Just because a great majority of the people polled are suffering under the current free market economy, it doesn’t mean that the small minority who have figured out how to game the system should suffer.
More than 29,000 people in 27 countries were questioned. In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan, did more than one in five people feel that capitalism works well as it stands. (BBC)
Update: The results of this survey have been invalidated because it has been discovered that the people questioned in the United States about capitalism (as it works now) had been under the impression that they were being asked whether prejudice against capitalized letters works well. In an attempt to be politically correct, they had disagreed with the notion.
Now that is interesting !
Really – this isn’t news – had they asked everyone in 2006 when they were enjoying the benefits of capitalism I wonder if a different answer would have emerged. The strength in capitalism is not that it’s always good all the time, but that there is a path to make things better.
Also, in looking at the BBC article that is referenced here, the middle choice of “has flaws that can be addressed through regulation and reform” was almost certainly going to garner the majority of votes given the current economic climate.
If you’ve got a better system, let’s here it!
…this article is terribly written. Brevity is your friend. Unless, of course, you’re British. Then you get to be as unintelligible as you please!
Maybe I should have started the ‘article’ with unnecessary ellipses. Would that have made it better?
It amazes me how often people don’t realize what this website is really all about. Keep up the good work The Sarcasmist, the comments you get always make my day. =D
why come to knock something if youre not interested in what it has to say? do you honestly have that little interest in the massive amounts of information the internet holds? or are you that fed up with your own life that you feel the need to badger something someone else wrote?
hoe hum. Keep up the good work sarcasmist!
Two major problems with this. First, the US (nor anywhere else) has a truly free market economy. We are burdened with massive regulations and perversions that distort the efficiencies that would be present if truly unfettered. Second, whether or not many people believe something is not a valid way of proving it to be true. Argumentum ad populum fallacy. For example, if 100 people in a room believe that a cat is a dog, it doesn’t make it so.