A disturbing poll

Globescan does a periodic poll of support for free markets. The most recent one in April has two disturbing trends. First, support for free markets seems to be in a fairly precipitous decline in most places in the world. Even in the US there is a decline in support. From my perspective, the second trend is even more troubling(although certainly related to the first). There also seems to be increasing support for strong governmental regulation. A plurality in each of the countries (and in some cases a strong majority agree with the notion that "the free enterprise system and the free market system work best in society's interest when accompanied by strong government regulation." A lot of course depends on how people interpret the definitions but the trend is none-the-less bothersome. The lessons from Public Choice economics seem to have faded a bit - indeed, there are public goods but there is, as Gordon Tullock so rightly pointed out, public bads.