What Do People in Romania Think of Capitalism?
More on this, in Rainer Zitelmann, Zece mituri anticapitaliste. O critică a criticilor capitalismului (Romanian edition), MisesRo, 2023.
How do the Romanians feel about capitalism and the free market economy, and how do the attitudes in Romania compare to those in 33 other countries? This was the subject of a survey conducted between June 2021 and December 2022 in a total of 34 countries. The survey was conducted in the United States and in small, medium and large countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa. Representative samples of around 1,000 respondents were surveyed in each country.
In Romania, Ipsos MORI surveyed a representative sample of 1,000 people from June 17 to 21, 2022. In total, 34.550 respondents took part in the survey.
Attitudes to economic freedom in Romania
An analysis of the responses to the pro-state and pro-market statements reveals that statements in favor of a stronger role for the government meet with 28 percent approval, compared with 19 percent approval for pro-market statements in favor of a reduced role for the government. Dividing the average of positive statements by the average of negative statements yields a coefficient of 0.68. I will come back to this coefficient frequently below. A coefficient greater than 1.0 means that pro-economic freedom attitudes dominate, a coefficient less than 1.0 means that anti-economic freedom opinions dominate (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Romania: Six statements on a good economic system
Question: “Below is a list of various things that people have said they
consider to be a good economic system. Which of the statements
would you say too?”
Note: All data are in percentage of respondents
Source: Ipsos MORI survey 21-087515-07
What do people in Romania associate with ‘capitalism’?
All respondents were presented with 10 terms – five positive and five negative – and asked which they associated with the word ‘capitalism.’ The result: In contrast to the set of questions on the market economy, a majority of Romanian respondents associate ‘capitalism’ with positive terms. An average of 65 percent of Romanian respondents select negative terms such as “Greed,” “Coldness” or “Corruption.” Positive terms such as “Prosperity,” “Progress” and “Freedom” are selected by 76 percent (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Romania: Associations with ‘capitalism’
Question: “Please now think about the word capitalism. For each of the
following statements, select whether that is something you associate
with capitalism.”
Note: All data are in percentage of respondents
Source: Ipsos MORI survey 21-087515-07
The strongest association in Romania is between ‘capitalism’ and “A wide range of goods” (82 percent!) – something that many people in Western countries might take for granted, but for Romanians, who can still remember the socialist past, is by no means self-evident. An analysis of responses by age group reveals that among respondents over the age of 55, who still have clear memories of socialism, 93 percent associate capitalism with “A wide range of goods,” while among 18–29-year olds, who only know socialism from their parents’ stories, a much lower 64 percent select the same statement (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Romania: Associations with ‘capitalism’ – The greatest differences between age groups
Question: “Please now think about the word capitalism. For each of the
following statements, select whether that is something you associate
with capitalism.”
Note: All data are in percentage of respondents
Source: Ipsos MORI survey 21-087515-07
18 positive and negative statements about ‘capitalism’
Respondents were presented with a total of 18 statements about capitalism, 10 of which were negative and 8 of which were positive. On this set of questions, agreement with negative statements (averaging 26 percent) slightly outweighs agreement with positive statements (averaging 23 percent). Dividing the percentage for the positive statements by the percentage for the negative statements results in a coefficient of 0.85.
For instance, 41 percent of Romanian respondents say that “Capitalism is dominated by the rich, they set the political agenda”; 36 percent believe that “Capitalism leads to growing inequality”; and 29 percent agree that “Capitalism leads to monopolies where individual companies control the entire market,” as depicted in Figure 4. But there are also two positive statements that attract significant approval (compared to many other countries). The most positive statement is “Capitalism may not be ideal, but it is still better than all other economic systems.” This statement, which in many countries did not even make it into the top 10, elicits agreement from 34 percent of Romanian respondents makes it to third place. This, again, can be explained against the background of Romania’s socialist past. Agreement with the statement that “Capitalism means economic freedom” is also comparatively high in 4th place at 32 percent (Figure 5).
Figure 4
Romania: Statements about capitalism – 10 negative statements
Question: “Which of the following statements about capitalism, if any, would
you agree with?”
Note: All data are in percentage of respondents
Source: Ipsos MORI survey 21-087515-07
Figure 5
Romania: Statements about capitalism – 8 positive statements
Question: “Which of the following statements about capitalism, if any, would
you agree with?”
Note: All data are in percentage of respondents
Source: Ipsos MORI survey 21-087515-07
How do attitudes to capitalism in Romania compare to attitudes in other countries?
When the figures for economic freedom and the two capitalism questions are combined, the result is a coefficient of 0.90). This coefficient is decisive for comparison with other countries.
In our survey, there are 22 countries that exhibit more anti-capitalist tendencies than in Romania, in contrast to 11 countries, who even have a more positive attitude toward capitalism. The most positive attitudes toward capitalism are held by people in Poland, the USA and South Korea (Figure 6).
Figure 6
Overall coefficient on attitudes toward capitalism in 34 countries
Note: The lower the coefficient, the stronger the anti-capitalist attitude
Sources: Allensbach Institute survey 12038, Sant Maral Foundation, Ipsos MORI surveys 20-091774-30, 21-087515-07, 22-014242-04-03 and 22-087515-44, Indochina Research, FACTS Research & Analytics Pvt. Ltd. and Research World International Ltd.
Photo source: flickr.com.
(“Lower Manhattan” by Thomas James Delbridge. Exhibit: “1934 A New Deal for Artists”.)
