Feb 05 2007
Index of Economic Freedom
The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal have just brought out their 2007 editon of the Index of Economic Freedom.
Free and largely free countries have high incomes per head. Planned and repressed societies have low incomes per head.
The seven most free countries in the world are based on the US/Uk free enterprise model, led by Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia,??the USA????and New Zealand. The least free countries are North Korea, Cuba, Libya, Zimbabwe and Burma.
The Index is based on ten different measurements of the economies. The UK, now in sixth place, is below the world average on taxation and freedom from government. The Labour years of increasing taxes and increasing government spending and interference are beginning to tell. The UK only keeps a good overall ranking because it is still relatively free of corruption, it is relatively easy to set up a business?? here and there are good property and financial markets.
??The tables show that a lot of other countries are improving their ratings by cutting taxes and reducing the size of the state. Size matters - those with a large state have more unemployment and more poverty.
??To those who say how come then that the Scandinavian countries are prosperous when they too have high taxes and high public spending, the Index compilers say that Scandianvian countries are free in the other areas that also matter. As a result these ??countries remain relatively?? prosperous, but still a lot less well off than a country like the USA which keeps taxes down as well as protecting the other freedoms.
The UK’s 2006 and 2007 ratings have been flattered by a change of accounting, which includes the relative freedom of labour makrets for the first time, where the UK has scored well since the 1980s reforms.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
It does appear that the cause of liberty has been severely undermined by ten years of Labour government. After comparing Britain to the USA, I struggle to believe that many British people still consider our nation a bastion of freedom. I do believe that Britain could be a lot more prosperous, and enjoy a more healthy society, if the scourge of overbearing government was curtailed.
Here is a very telling chart from the book graphing countries’ economic freedom across the x axis and per capita GDP across the y axis.
Yup, the US is free of those terrible burdens like paid maternity leave! Cuts in Medicare and Medicaid have made lots of Americans even more free to choose which medical care they cannot afford. Freedom!
Guido Fawkes: “David Davis has written to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, giving formal notice that an incoming Conservative administration will scrap ID Cards.”
Thats more like a Conservative policy. I makes me even more angry the Tories chose Cameron over Davis. What a terrible mistake that has turned out to be.
It is unfortunate for us liberals that the the most “free” EU nations - Britain, Ireland, Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands* - are also top of the crime tables, at least according to the survey released by Gallup & the European Commission today.
* Luxembourg comes after Ireland and before Estonia on the economic freedom ranking.
Why should this be so?
(The survey appears to weigh street crime and burglary higher than corruption and consumer fraud (areas where Britain isn’t perceived to be so crime-ridden), maybe that’s it. It is perfectly obvious that the EU doesn’t view corruption as a serious crime!
Also it is a survey of citizens’ perception and experience of crime, rather than of police data. But still.)
http://www.eursoc.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/1372/UK,_Ireland_Top_EU_Crime_League.html