The U.S. Economy Is More Free Than It’s Been in Years: New at Reason

Good news: the U.S. has quietly broken a decades-long retreat from economic freedom, becoming a place more supportive of private business and the ability of individuals to make a living. This news comes courtesy of the latest report on the “Economic Freedom of the World,” published last week by Canada’s Fraser Institute and the Cato Institute and using data up through 2016.

“The foundations of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, and open markets,” write authors James Gwartney, Robert Lawson, Joshua Hall, and Ryan Murphy—though there’s rather a lot more behind the numbers, as you might expect.

Readers of Reason will take it as a given that freedom—the ability to order your own affairs and make consensual arrangements with willing people—is a good thing in itself. But the report notes that “countries with greater economic freedom have substantially higher per-capita incomes.” Life expectancy also rises and “is about 20 years longer in countries with the most economic freedom than in countries with the least.” And freedom appears to be indivisible, with the rights to run your business and use your property closely linked to the rights to criticize leaders and change the government. “Greater economic freedom is associated with more political rights and civil liberties,” the report notes.

So economic freedom is good—whether in itself or because of the longevity, prosperity, and associated liberty it brings.

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