Cross-posted at Reports from the Economic Front.
The Pew Research Center recently published a report titled “Pervasive Gloom About the World Economy.” The following two charts come from Chapter 4 which is called “The Causalities: Faith in Hard Work and Capitalism.”
The first suggests that the belief that hard work pays off remains strong in only a few countries: Pakistan (81%), the U.S. (77%), Tunisia (73%), Brazil (69%), India (67%) and Mexico (65%). The low scores in China, Germany, and Japan are worth noting. This is not to say that people everywhere are not working hard, just that many no longer believe there is a strong connection between their effort and outcome.
The second chart highlights the fact that growing numbers of people are losing faith in free market capitalism. Despite mainstream claims that “there is no alternative,” a high percentage of people in many countries do not believe that the free market system makes people better off.
GlobeScan polled more than 12,000 adults across 23 countries about their attitudes towards economic inequality and, as the chart below reveals, the results were remarkably similar to those highlighted above. In fact, as GlobeScan noted, “In 12 countries over 50% of people said they did not believe that the rich deserved their wealth.
It certainly seems that large numbers of people in many different countries are open to new ways of organizing economic activity.
Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College. You can follow him at Reports from the Economic Front.
Comments 50
Yrro Simyarin — August 1, 2012
Would be interesting to see the rankings compared with one of the surveys of economic freedom. Is there a correlation between the amount of economic freedom and people's trust in it? And does the lack of trust lead to a more controlled economy, or the increase in prosperity of a free market lead to greater trust in it?
circadianwolf — August 1, 2012
"Despite mainstream claims that 'there is no alternative,' a high
percentage of people in many countries do not believe that the free
market system makes people better off."
Of course, the point of TINA rhetoric is precisely to promote the idea that even if the "free market" isn't making things better for people, there is nothing else we could be doing. Anyone saying TINA has given up arguing that "free markets" make things better.
anonymousskimmer — August 2, 2012
The thing about countries such as Russia is that many of their billionaires truly didn't earn their wealth - they were instead basically handed functioning companies / monopolies by the government following the fall of the Soviet union, from what I gather.
It's funny to say the US has a free market system when we have copyright and patent laws.
kaileyverse — August 2, 2012
I think that most people (like me) bust their ASS day in and day out at a low-paying low-reward (other than potentially, personally rewarding) job, with little to show for it other than burgeoning amounts of debt.
We realize that how hard we work has little to do with our paycheck.
THe USA has one of the lowest rates of upward social mobility (perhaps, it may even be more likely for people to fall out of their "class"). Meritocracy is a MYTH and people are wising up to it.
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Russ sigeti — August 5, 2012
I noticed that accodring to the surveys Mexico did not have a lot of faith in the free market economy and also did not have a high faith that hard work would necessarily lead to success. I think that this is because of their currupt government and also the fact that you have to pay to go to school in Mexico. K-12 is not free!
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Anon — August 26, 2012
"Are people better off in free market economy?" The answers are given as agree or disagree.
Ugh. That's a yes or no question. You can have agree or disagree with the statement (not question), "People are better off in a free market economy."
Such sloppiness in graphics making turns me off and makes me wonder if the questions and options were worded so poorly when they were administered. Throws your whole results into question.
Patrick Bidigare — December 27, 2017
The data presented in the article doesn't justify the claim that faith in hard work and capitalism is *declining*, only that it's not uniformly high across all countries. Only the GlobeScan surveys contain data from different times (and here only four years different), and there doesn't appear to be a clear, consistent change in perspective.
I find it surprising that there's effectively no change in American's on whether the wealthy deserve their riches when the financial crisis and Federal Reserve bailout occurred between the survey dates.
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