“While most countries around the world are struggling with an economic downturn, this has not led to a backlash against global trade. In fact, as has been observed in recent American polls, this year there is, if anything, more support for trade than there was in 2008. Most publics continue to see trade as beneficial for their countries and for their families. Nor has the economic crisis led to widespread doubts about the free market. In the vast majority of countries surveyed, most think the free market approach to economics is good for society, even if it produces income inequalities.”
It isn’t just wealthy nations that prefer the capitalist system. The survey shows that “[s]upport for the free market approach is strongest in two of the poorest nations on the survey, Kenya (84% agree) and the Palestinian territories (82%). Palestinians are now considerably more likely to endorse free market economics than they were two years ago, when 66% held this view. Support is also high in the growing Asian giants India (81%) and China (79%).”
Proponents of capitalism tend to focus on the system’s benefits in terms of encouraging economic activity, the efficient allocation of labor and capital, and overall wealth creation. Indeed as The Cato Institute’s annual report of Economic Freedom of the World found, countries with greater economic freedoms produce on average much higher GDPs and more than double the economic growth rate of statist economies. But capitalism isn’t just good for the bottom line: people living in freer economies also tend to have higher life expectancies, less corrupt governments, more political rights and greater respect for civil liberties.
Capitalist countries are also far more generous to other nations. The largest 22 contributors of international aid are members of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development and all have relatively free economic systems. In all, these countries contribute over a hundred billion U.S. dollars each year in foreign aid and the money ends up in countries not at all friendly to them such as Cuba, Libya, North Korea, and Iran.
Women also do better in a capitalist system. The UN produces two measures of women’s well-being: the Gender-Related Development Index, which measures women’s health, education levels, and standard of living; and the Gender Empowerment Index, which captures political and economic participation, and women’s estimated earned income. When these indices are compared against Cato’s Economic Freedom of the World report, countries with high levels of economic freedom consistently score high on the GDI and the GEM, and conversely, those that score low on the Cato’s graph, score low on the UN gender indices.
Capitalism isn’t perfect but it’s the best option for creating greater health, wealth and well-being for the world’s population. While those in the White House, in Congress and in Hollywood try to weaken this country’s capitalist system, Americans know better…and so does the rest of the world.