An international survey that may enlighten our ongoing debate here about whether America is a center-right country or not, whether Americans have a blind faith in the virtues of private business. Here's an extended extract for those without access to the FT:

Americans have grown less trusting of business in the past year, bucking a global trend of rising confidence in companies, governments and other institutions, according to data to be presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Just 46 per cent of Americans last year said they trusted business down eight points from 2009, according to research by Edelman, a communications consultancy, which will be presented on Wednesday. Global trust in business was up two points to 56 per cent, by contrast.

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Edelman’s 11th annual poll of 5,000 educated, wealthy and “well-informed” individuals in 23 countries was taken at the end of a year that featured high-profile crises at BP, Goldman Sachs, and Toyota.

“The US was the epicentre of all the corporate disasters except Foxconn [the Chinese technology supplier hit by a series of worker suicides],” said Richard Edelman, chief executive of the consultancy.

This left the US public more sceptical about business than people in Germany or France, both of which saw big rebounds in trust in the corporate sector.

The US also showed increasing mistrust of government, non-governmental organisations and the media, leaving it as the only country polled to see an across-the-board fall in trust.

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Much of the rally in sentiment was driven by emerging markets such as Brazil, China, Mexico and India. However, Russia joined Germany, the US and the UK among the least trusting countries.