Pew Finds Worldwide Opposition to Patents and Copyrights

That is not how the NYT reported the results of an international poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, but it could have been. The survey asked people in 46 countries about their attitude toward a "free market economy." It is not clear that people in these countries have a common conception of the meaning of a "free market economy." Government imposed monopolies like patents and copyrights arguably have no place in a free market economy. These monopolies have a large and growing impact on the economy, affecting the distribution of trillions of dollars of goods and services worldwide. They have also been the topic of heated dispute in recent trade agreements. Since it is not clear how people in different countries conceive of a free market, it is not clear what the results of the Pew poll mean. For this reason, it is questionable whether its findings deserved a full article in the NYT.

--Dean Baker