Talk:Index of Economic Freedom

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[edit] America is free?!

Oh come on, this is just blatant propaganda. You have to some brainwashed nut-job to think America is free at all, let alone free market. God. Where to start really--82.43.47.6 (talk) 17:28, 24 May 2008 (UTC).

Go live in Zimbabwe or China and complain about their country if you think it's bad here, life is prison is lots of fun there I hear. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:52, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, because those are free countries, which fit my clear preferences. Oh wait, you were trying to be sarcastic, you're so funny! And America has a far far higher incarceration rate than even those two exemplars of totalitarianism. FAIL.--82.43.47.6 (talk) 18:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hmmm... no Afghanistan

From the table: "Due to economic or political instability, Afghanistan, Angola, Bhutan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Serbia and Montenegro were not ranked." So there you go. —Gabbe 14:42, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
And what's more, Somalia would rank very low if it were ranked, because it doesn't include many of the necessary criteria, such as enforcement of contracts and property rights. The Heritage folks aren't anarchists, after all... --Delirium 15:01, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

Is this type of information not subject to copyright? Presumably, the WSJ and Heritage Foundation paid big bucks to study all of these factors and may have some claim to copyright about the information in the study. I guess that the main question is whether or not this information can be considered as objective fact. I don't think that it is; there is a lot of research that has gone into this information. Feel free to explain why Wikipedia should copy the table of statistics. --timc | Talk 04:30, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Information cannot be copyrighted, only the means of expressing information. - Montréalais 08:36, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Economic Freedom for Who?

Full disclosure up front: I distrust anything the Heritage Foundation publishes, so I can't claim to be unbiased.

The so-called "Index of Economic Freedom" could be re-titled as the "Index of Ease of Foreign Ownership". It doesn't measure actual economic freedom as lived on the streets and storefronts of countries around the world. If it did, it would reflect that countries like Vietnam (which I just returned from) are among the freest, most entrepreneurial, least-regulated of all. Instead, the Heritage "Index" measures the amount of foreign ownership that a country permits, its restrictions on foreign ownership of a country's banking sector, and the degree to which labor, environmental, and accounting laws impede foreign companies' ability to maneuver freely in overseas economies. Dissenting views are welcome, but my own experiences around the world tell me that economic freedom is best measured by referring to the average citizen, not the multi-national concerns seeking entry to new markets.

It measures property rights, which do indeed affect every citizen. The least economically liberal countries are those that have the most difficulty (or choose not) to protect or establish such rights for their citizens, and thus are those with the lowest GDP per capitas (which is the disposable income of the average citizen of a particular country). I have to say I distrust anyone who argues that socialism is the key to properity for a nation. Might we look at Cuba and see what a paradise it is? Do citizens have "economic freedom" there? Those "evil" multinationals give their workers in developing countries wages that are anywhere from two to eight times as high as the incomes they would earn from domestic industries. Explain how this doesn't affect the average citizen?

(Not the same person) If you look at the list you'll see economic freedom as measured by Heritage doesn't necessarily come with prosperity, just look at Estonia and Hong Kong, most people live poorly there, while the French, who sit at 44th place, have a good living for the most part. Some situations in the list are just weird. If we take all the Maghreb countries for example, Lybia ranks by far the worst, but it's where the people are better off (though I'm sure Lybia will be one of the most improved countries now). El Salvador seems pretty good at 24th, but do people really live better there than in Venezuela, Honduras, heck, they're worse off than in Cuba! And I'm 99,99% sure that the Portuguese are much, much more rich than people in Botswana. Etc.
Although your question was adressed to the other guy, it's fairly simple. If for example a country doesn't have much salary restrictions (which helps rise in this list), that means it can make more profits, thus benefitting the GDP/Capita of the country, but not necessarily the average workers.

It should be pointed out that what we ought to be talking about are growth rates rather than general prosperity as some countries have larger initial endowments or have been more free economically for many years than countries above them on the list.

[edit] Economic Freedom of the World?

Cato puts out a similar index, but is not covered on Wikipedia. It should be added to its own thread and linked to the other indices.

[edit] Burkina Faso

Since it is placed simultaneously at 102 and 155 on the index, I nominate Burkina Faso for having the most interesting economic freedom status. Can someone sort that out? Jdcooper 14:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the second one should be Myanmar, also called Burma. The map provided shows Burkina Faso as orange, and Myanmar as red; it isn't anywhere on the list, and I'm wondering if someone used BUR as a redirect for Burma, rather than Myanmar. I don't know how to edit the table, though. --ByeByeBaby 06:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I believe I fixed it. I took a guess that Myanmar was MYA, and it took. I hope I didn't mess it up. Sandy 01:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slovenia missing

Slovenia is missing from the rankings and after a quick glance I noticed that a few countries are misranked compared to the official website of Heritage [1]. edolen1 23:05, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I still don't know how to edit the table, but also missing are Cameroon and Moldova. --ByeByeBaby 06:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Just edit Template:Index of Economic Freedom/Ranking 2006. Slovenia had 2.41, Cameroon 3.46 and Moldova 3.10. Unfortunately editing tables like that is a hell, because of need change rank of more that hundred records. --Jklamo 17:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This Article's Concept Of "Economic Freedom" Is Right-Wing Propaganda

The extreme-right-wing Heritage Foundation's concept of "economic freedom" is highly misleading. Basically, it's just code for "lack of unions and worker's rights." It's also code for giving corporations the ability to run amok, with no responsibility to society (even if that society's population strongly wants corporations to be controlled in some way). Therefore, for all the references to "freedom," it's clear that what the Heritage Foundation considers "freedom," is deeply anti-democratic. Incidentally, outside of giving corporations free reign, this "economic freedom" index doesn't seem to be very helpful to the small mom-and-pop business owners. As evidence for this, I'd point anyone to places like Asia and Continental Europe, where small and medium sized businesses thrive to an extent far beyond what we see in the American economy (which is heavily dominated by giant corporations). I find it interesting how U.S. right-wingers would consider a country like Japan to be anti-business-friendly. The fact is, Japan (with less than one-half of America's population) in fact has a greater number of businesses than the U.S. does.

Right. That must be why bastions of right-wing, laissez-faire economics like Denmark are ranked higher than the United States, land of socialism and economic equality.
Look, this is an index of "economic freedom" as measured by what amounts to the ease of moving capital around without official state impediment--from both a domestic AND international point of view (which is why Japan gets such a mediocre score). You can call that "right-wing propaganda" if you wish, but the results clearly show welfare states with some of the lowest Gini coefficients on earth ranking right next to states with much higher ones, with plenty of the former ranking near the top of the scale. That should indicate to most fair-minded people the ideological neutrality of the measure.
At any rate, the arguments for its supposedly "biased" nature have been included in the article. 24.72.6.129 20:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Saudi Arabia is Freer than Turkey??

Now, that cracks me up...American way of thanking for all the petroluem they got from Sauds..

[edit] Redirecting to Economic freedom

I suggest moving the contents and redirecting the article to Economic freedom. This because there are actually two very similar incdices. Much of the research mentioned here is actually from using the the other index and it would be better to discuss both in one place. Objections? Ultramarine 21:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes I have strong objections since "economic freedom" is a discourse in the philosophy of political economy that has a long history and which is highly controversial. The articles concerning the two indexes by no means represent a general consensus concerning this discourse. Moreover the articles strike a scientific pose constituting the grand pretence that not only is "economic freedom" known but that in can be quantified, and this is being promulgated primarily by minority groups of right wing economists and think tanks. The articles should be merged under the title "Indices of Economic Freedom" and an article referring to the term "economic freedom" should rather reflect the wide-ranging discourse on the subject. BernardL 14:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Many peer-reviewed articles have used them. However, you are right that the concept existed before these surveys. Moving to Indices of Economic Freedom.Ultramarine 19:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)