Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.

Despite this quibble, I take the results of this poll as a pretty positive sign. Sometimes, it seems that socialism is winning. And that's because people want the best of both worlds - "the electorate takes both a 'leave me alone' and a 'gimme a hand' approach to government," to quote Jon Henke.

Another interesting aspect of the poll is the first chart. As the article says,

In all but one country polled, a majority or plurality agreed with the statement that “the free enterprise system and free market economy is the best system on which to base the future of the world.”

And who is that one country? France. You can't make this stuff up.

But on a more seriously intriguing note, the nation with the highest percentage agreeing with the statement was China. That's right, they scored higher than the U.S.A. So much for the Red Threat... we really did win the Cold War.

GlobeScan President Doug Miller had some interesting advice;

[C]ompanies will need to increasingly demonstrate that they are operating in society’s best interest rather than just their own. The social contract needs to be re-built around the free market.

I have re-read this several times. It's not such a revolutionary idea, but that last sentence in particular bears repeating in all company.

Also, the article does not make particular note of it, but I found it interesting which countries had the least number disagreeing: India, Poland, South Korea, and China. In general, Southeast Asian respondants seem much more "free" market than Europeans or Americans. Consider the relation between that point and the following:

In aggregate, agreement that the free market system is best was higher among those with high education (64%) than low education (56%), as well as those with very high income (66%) as compared to those with very low income (59%), but the differences were slight.

The view that large companies have too much influence over national governments follows the same pattern. Those with high education were more likely to agree (79%) than those with low education (69%). Contrary to the stereotype that very-high-income people perceive the influence of large companies as serving their interests, those with very high incomes were more likely to agree that such companies have too much influence (77%) than those with very low income (66%).

Majority support for greater regulation to protect the rights of workers was a bit higher among those with low education (78%) than with high education (68%), and by those with very low income (80%) over those with very high income (71%), but the differences were strikingly slight. The same pattern obtained for greater regulation to protect the rights of consumers, but the variation was even smaller.

Interestingly, the same pattern obtained for greater protection of the rights of investors, with 56% of those with low education favoring more regulation as compared to 50% among those with high education, and 59% of those with very low income as compared to 50% among those with very high income. Though those with higher education and income are more likely to be investors, those with low education and income are more likely to think that investors need government protection.