Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Economic Freedom = Prosperity

It really is that simple. Countries that are more economically free have an amazing correlation to being more prosperous. As seen in this Distribution of Economic Freedom world map, it becomes clear that when looking at the most economically free nations in the world, they are nearly all among the most prosperous. When comparing the list of most economically free countries with that of the countries with the highest GDP per capita, the top thirty countries in each list have an overlap of 73.3% (22 of 30 countries, not including Brunei). The vast majority of the most economically free countries are also the vast majority of the most prosperous. And of those that did not overlap, many, such as Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain (the Middle East's economically freest country), find much their wealth derived from oil.

However, for the vast majority of those countries which are economically free, their wealth is derived not from natural resources, but from a marketplace which is given the freedom to operate efficiently to create wealth. This has led those countries to be extremely prosperous and is beneficial to all of the country's inhabitants. It is clear that government intervention into markets, socialist policies of nationalization, and anti-capitalist policies do not create prosperity as well as laissez-faire policies do.

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