Thursday, February 4, 2010

Americans Love Free Enterprise, Capitalism (Sorta)

Gallup has conducted a poll of Americans' opinions on capitalism, socialism, and other ideological buzz terms (HT Hit & Run). Note: Gallup did not provide definitions for the terms. Some noteworthy findings:
  • 86% of Americans are pro-free enterprise, yet only 61% are pro-capitalism.
  • 58% of Americans are anti-socialism, while 33% are anti-capitalism.
  • 4% of Americans are anti-small business. (Fat Cat CEOs, I suppose?)
  • Americans are split on big business (49% pro and con).















When broken down by ideological identification, there are some more bizarre findings:
  • 60% of liberals are pro-capitalism and 61% are pro-socialism. What explains this apparent ambivalence?
  • 87% of liberals are pro-free enterprise!
  • 20% of conservatives are pro-socialism. No surprise there.
  • More liberals are pro-capitalism/free enterprise than moderates. What?