Free market flawed, says survey

By James Robbins
Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News


The fall of the wall looked like a crushing victory for capitalism
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found
widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.
In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned
across 27 countries said that it was working well.
Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.

There were also sharp divisions around the world on whether the end of the
Soviet Union was a good thing.

Economic regulation

In 1989, as the Berlin Wall fell, it was a victory for ordinary people across
Eastern and Central Europe.

It also looked at the time like a crushing victory for free-market capitalism.

A Frankfurt trader tries to deal during the 2008 banking crisis
Twenty years on, this new global poll suggests confidence in free markets has
taken heavy blows from the past 12 months of financial and economic crisis.

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.

Almost a quarter - 23% of those who responded - feel it is fatally flawed. That
is the view of 43% in France, 38% in Mexico and 35% in Brazil.

And there is very strong support around the world for governments to distribute
wealth more evenly. That is backed by majorities in 22 of the 27 countries.

If there is one issue where a global consensus seems to emerge from the survey
it is this: there are majorities almost everywhere wanting government to be more
active in regulating business.

It is only in Turkey that a majority want less government regulation.
Opinion about the disintegration of the Soviet Union is sharply divided.

Europeans overwhelmingly say it was a good thing: 79% in Germany, 76% in Britain
and 74% in France feel that way.

But outside the developed West it is a different picture. Almost seven in 10
Egyptians say the end of the Soviet Union was a bad thing and views are sharply
divided in India, Kenya and Indonesia.