Canada's Fraser Institute has just released its Economic Freedom of the World report for 2014. The index, compiled annually by the Fraser Institute and public policy think tanks in the USA and Germany, uses 76 indicators of personal, civil and economic freedoms.
Why do they do this? Because economic freedom has been shown in numerous peer-reviewed studies to promote prosperity and other positive outcomes. It is a necessary condition for democratic development. It liberates people from dependence on government in a planned economy, and allows them to make their own economic and political choices.
And what is economic freedom? The 1996 report defines the concept this way:
Individuals have economic freedom when property they acquire without the use of force, fraud, or theft is protected from physical invasions by others and they are free to use, exchange, or give their property as long as their actions do not violate the identical rights of others. An index of economic freedom should measure the extent to which rightly acquired property is protected and individuals are engaged in voluntary transactions.
The 2014 report (see link at end of this post) puts Hong Kong at the top of the league table. This surprises me a bit, as virtually every month sees demonstrations and protests in the streets of Hong Kong against rule from Beijing and the absence of universal suffrage. However, we must remember that the EFW report concentrates on economics, not politics.
Second on the list is Switzerland, followed by Finland, Denmark and New Zealand. Canada, in spite of the virtual dictatorship of Steve Harper (now campaigning hard for his fourth term as Prime Minister) is in sixth place. The Disunited Kingdom is ninth, and Germany twelfth.
But (I hear you ask) what about the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? After nearly eight years of the Obama maladministration and ever-increasing statism -- the misguided notion that the government must regulate every aspect of business and personal life -- it's not surprising to find the USA in twentieth (20th) place. Fred McMahon, the editor of the study, says the data on America shows a "significant weakening of the rule of law", an erosion of property rights and "an expansion of quasi-judicial regulations".
The least free country in the EFW index is... wait for it... Iran, with whom the USA is about to sign a treaty which will (according to Messrs Obama and Kerry) solve all the problems of the Middle East and the world. The Undemocratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Yemen round out the bottom five.
Further reading: Economic Freedom of the World -- 2014 Annual Report. The whole thing -- 282 pages in .pdf format.
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