As Americans mark 50 years since the final days of U.S.
involvement in Vietnam, the sting of that war may be more painful knowing this:
60,000+ American soldiers died fighting the spread of communism but Vietnam
today enjoys a thriving, increasingly capitalist economy.

In fact, Ezra Klein of Vox pulled out a 2014 international poll that
found the Vietnamese favor capitalism more than any other nation surveyed.

The poll by Pew Research found that 95
percent of Vietnamese are for the free market, and only 3 percent are against
it. Those incredibly lopsided results came about when Pew asked survey
respondents: Are most people better off in a free-market
economy even if some are rich and some are poor?

That question was asked of people in dozens
of countries by Pew and not only was Vietnam more pro-capitalist than the
United States, so was China. As Klein points out, only 18 percent of Chinese doubt the free market is
better, while 25 percent of Americans do.

In fact, the “emerging economies” that have
roughly as much faith in free markets as the U.S., despite income disparities,
include places such Thailand, South Africa, Pakistan and Venezuela – the
most recent country to suffer greatly at the hands of socialism.

Among developing countries, Bangladesh, once one of the
poorest nations on Earth, has a more pro-capitalist outlook than the U.S.
Which
brings us to the very libertarian views among some of these nations who have
struggled in the past with widespread poverty.

Not only do the people in many of the
overwhelmingly pro-capitalist countries express great optimism that their
children will enjoy better living conditions than they do, they reject the idea
that taxing the rich to help the poor is the way to go.

When Pew researchers asked about the best
ways for government to solve inequality, they found strong support for hands-off
approach — keeping taxes low on the wealthy and corporations. In half of the 44
countries surveyed, respondents said low taxes to encourage investment and
economic growth was a more effective means of reducing inequality than focusing
on government help for the poor.

In fact, people living in the most
prosperous, advanced economies were more supportive of taxing the rich to aid
the poor than the emerging and poor nations.