Gallup correlates two of its polls worldwide, and finds that the answers line up.
Poll 1: Is corruption in your government widespread?
Poll 2: How satisfied are you with the freedom you have to live your life and make your own decisions?
Americans have fallen to 36th place in the second poll, out of the top few in 2006. Nearly four out of five agree that corruption is widespread in our government.
3 comments:
I notice that the first article- almost a year before the second- doesn't even mention the United States until you go to the second page with the full table of results. In contrast, the whole point of the second article is to put the United States results in perspective. Quite a change...
On the basis of the chart, I'd summarize the results a little differently. The bulk of countries are between 40% and 100% convinced of rampant corruption in government, and between 40% and 100% happy with their freedom in life. Within that range, there's no correlation worth mentioning: the countries land almost equally in all four quadrants. Maybe the correlation would be more apparent if the graph showed trends in each factor.
The surprising outlier is Rwanda, where apparently no one sees any corruption in government and everyone's happy with his freedom.
Well, the elites always think they are free. What matters is what the peasants think.
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