Freer World = Richer World

20/20 and ABC News host (and great friend to reason) John Stossel talks up the connection between economic freedom and rising incomes on a global scale:

"I think one of the best kept secrets is that the world is in the midst of an economic boom, and it is largely driven by increases in economic freedom," says economics professor James Gwartney, director of the Stavros Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Economic Education at Florida State University. "The world has become more free, and, at the same time, growth is soaring to new highs. During 1995 to 2005, the growth rate of per capita GDP in 99 countries for which data are available has increased to 2.2 percent, nearly twice the rate of recent decades. Since 2000, the annual growth rate of per capita GDP has been even more rapid, 3.2 percent."

As the world gets freer, says Gwartney, it gets richer.

Whole Stossel col here.

More info on the Economic Freedom of the World report, including a searchable database with country-by-country info ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe here.

Stossel in reason here and here.

Update: Those embedded ads are now disappeared.

Comments

R C Dean | January 24, 2008, 9:51am | #

That's weird, and annoying. I'm getting ads embedded in that post. Right before "As the world gets freer . . ."

David | January 24, 2008, 9:51am | #

What's with the ads in the middle of the post?

DavidS | January 24, 2008, 9:51am | #

That's sure as hell a creepy cover.

sage | January 24, 2008, 9:52am | #

That remains the only issue of Reason that did not make it to my mailbox. And when I called, there were no extras available.

Episiarch | January 24, 2008, 9:54am | #

Who picks the colors for Reason covers? Maybe they should go back to their Pantone swatches.

Bingo | January 24, 2008, 9:55am | #

Maybe the ads are part of the quote?

Nick Gillespie is a shill for big spam | January 24, 2008, 9:56am | #

Click here for che4p Ci@li$.

Rob | January 24, 2008, 9:56am | #

Good lord. Those are large ads in the middle of a post.

GILMORE | January 24, 2008, 9:57am | #

R C Dean | January 24, 2008, 9:51am | #
That's weird, and annoying. I'm getting ads embedded in that post. Right before "As the world gets freer . . ."

Im not sure thats an accident.

Maybe it's a subtle point. CAPITALIZM!!! IN your FACE!

JasonL | January 24, 2008, 10:00am | #

Seriously, I just saw a 2 ft tall recruitment ad for the Border Patrol in the middle of that post. Where am I?

John-David | January 24, 2008, 10:04am | #

Since the entire thread is OT, apparently John McCain has won the Louisiana Caucus.

Warty | January 24, 2008, 10:04am | #

Good lord. Those are large ads in the middle of a post.

Install an extension called NoScript. I never see ads anymore.

GILMORE | January 24, 2008, 10:08am | #

I'm taking odds = who thinks we can go a whole day on H&R without one Ron Paul-related topic?

5 to 1?

Problem being, ANYTHING can be a Ron Paul topic once the posters let loose. Am I creating the source of my own downfall? Hoist by mine own petard? Who can say. Maybe i just dropped the odds down to 3 to 1 by saying this. Its like Heisenburgs Uncertainty Principle. You cant measure a thing without changing it. Or something. Anyhoo. Im making a bet this might be the day where we free ourselves from the Ron Paul 24/7 hand-wringing, and the horde of dopes that follow...

GILMORE | January 24, 2008, 10:09am | #

John-David | January 24, 2008, 10:04am | #
Since the entire thread is OT, apparently John McCain has won the Louisiana Caucus.

the thread is OT because it's not fretting about day to day politics?

Or because it's NOT ABOUT RON PAUL!!

John-David | January 24, 2008, 10:11am | #

GILMORE,

I meant how not a single comment had anything to do with the original post.

BakedPenguin | January 24, 2008, 10:13am | #

Install an extension called NoScript. I never see ads anymore.

There are occasional ads I don't mind seeing. I even clicked through the "conservative t-shirt" ad a couple times in hopes of encouraging them. Had they actually had some funny t-shirts, I might have bought one.

I saw auto insurance & Microsoft in the middle of the screen (2 separate ads), better than the border patrol, even if it was for Vista™.

Somewhat OT, one of my regrets is that I never took a class with Gwartney while I was at FSU.

Ali | January 24, 2008, 10:13am | #

Goodness, is reason the desperate for money? Ads even in a quote?

William R | January 24, 2008, 10:13am | #

Jamie Kirchick's, Reason and Cato source for the Ron Paul smear revealed

Tom Walls | January 24, 2008, 10:15am | #

Thank you for have Borat on top of lovely magazines! I kiss you!

Bingo | January 24, 2008, 10:15am | #

"GILMORE's Law"

BakedPenguin | January 24, 2008, 10:17am | #

Oh, and a bigger regret - I had a class with Gabrielle Reese and never asked her out.

J sub D | January 24, 2008, 10:18am | #

Freer World = Richer World

Somebody felt free enough to disturb my Wa with some advertisements amidst the post. Maybe it will enrich them, but irritating this consumer is counterproductive, to say the least.

I'm assuming that there is a point to this (other than revenue).

DavidS | January 24, 2008, 10:19am | #

You got your Paul thread Gilmore. Wish I'd taken the bet while I had the chance. William R - it sure is a 'bombshell ' - "reporter talks to neo-Nazi who claims association with Paul". Shocking stuff.

James | January 24, 2008, 10:24am | #

Stossel is really a creepy guy...has he succeeded in getting people to be able to marry their cousins yet?

Reinmoose | January 24, 2008, 10:25am | #

Ah, that's better

Warren | January 24, 2008, 10:31am | #

Gwartney misses the point. It's not freedom so much as property rights. China has gotten much richer, it has gotten somewhat freer. But it's freer in regards to property and not anything close to what I would call a free country. India on the other hand has been a free country for quite a while. But only by freeing up trade and property has they're economy began to soar. Ireland too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the freedom. I love freedom. But freedom comes in many forms, and if you're talking about how to get more wealth into your economy, then it's all about property rights.

DavidS | January 24, 2008, 10:36am | #

Ok ads are gone (not that I saw them). Can you change the cover as well?

Lamar | January 24, 2008, 10:39am | #

"if you're talking about how to get more wealth into your economy, then it's all about property rights."

For the most part this is true, but Latin America's economies suggest that economic freedoms in addition to protection of property is the fuel for the engine.

Jesse Walker | January 24, 2008, 10:49am | #

Jamie Kirchick's, Reason and Cato source for the Ron Paul smear revealed

Bill White was not a source for the Reason story.

PC | January 24, 2008, 10:58am | #

"Stossel is really a creepy guy...has he succeeded in getting people to be able to marry their cousins yet?"

Does Rudy count?

VM | January 24, 2008, 11:13am | #

"Update: Those embedded ads are now disappeared."

I like it! Phrasing is teh OOASUM! :)

Biggest regret:

listening to Baked Penguin's stories
[keed keed]
[chomps on own taint]

DavidS | January 24, 2008, 11:13am | #

Europeans are fond of claiming that their regulatory system is superior

We're actually fond of claiming that ours is less onerous than yours.

Gilbert Martin | January 24, 2008, 11:22am | #

"Gwartney misses the point. It's not freedom so much as property rights."

Property rights are part of freedom - the freedom to control your own property without interference by the state.

squarooticus | January 24, 2008, 11:25am | #

What ads? For those who haven't discovered this yet, Firefox with the Adblock extension makes the web a much more pleasant place. It's too bad I can't see busty white t-shirt girl (or whatever else I've been missing), but I think the lack of *bad* distracting ads more than makes up for it.

R C Dean | January 24, 2008, 11:40am | #

I meant how not a single comment had anything to do with the original post.

I take offense, sir. Mine had to do with ads in the middle of the original post.

I feel kind of bad now. I can see those poor ads bundled off in a black suburban, probably to be tossed from a helicopter over the Atlantic Ocean.

R C Dean | January 24, 2008, 11:41am | #

It's too bad I can't see busty white t-shirt girl (or whatever else I've been missing), but I think the lack of *bad* distracting ads more than makes up for it.

I think my personal threshold for tolerating bad ads to see busty t-shirt chicks must be somewhere in the 20:1 range.

Bingo | January 24, 2008, 11:44am | #

squarooticus:

The Snorg Tshirts girl on cracked.com beats the conservative t's chick anyday. Hot damn.

Neu Mejican | January 24, 2008, 12:05pm | #

From Stossel:
"The primary factors underlying this increase are lower top marginal tax rates, more stable monetary policy, lower tariffs and less regulation of international trade and some relaxation of restrictions on the movement of capital."

This seems like a description of a well managed market, not a free market.

It's stunning that some people still find the free well-managed market controversial.

Commence with snarking comments...

HatTrick | January 24, 2008, 12:49pm | #

John Stossel and Drew Carey.

Should I be concerned that these two chuckleheads, Freddy Mercury and my JV wrestling coach, are the only libertarians on the TV?

And you thought the newsletters were bad for the cause.

Ron Paul | January 24, 2008, 12:53pm | #

Stossel screwed me outta TeeVee time! He wasted a few hours of my time with an interview, but only put it on the 20/20 website. I pWn the tubes, but need free over the air exposure. Don't doer me!

BB | January 24, 2008, 2:29pm | #

They hate us for our riches!

Bud | January 24, 2008, 2:36pm | #

"Hot damn."

Quite the understatement!

BakedPenguin | January 24, 2008, 3:58pm | #

Moose - It's 77 degrees here. How's the lake look today? Heh heh.

Lamar | January 24, 2008, 5:18pm | #

Who can argue against a mustache with such a rich, textured pile?

Francisco Torres | January 24, 2008, 7:48pm | #

This seems like a description of a well managed market, not a free market.

That's an oxymoron - nobody can manage the market; it is as ridiculous as saying that one can manage evolution. What John Stossel talks about an increase in freedom, i.e. a lowering of the impediments so liked by politicians and estatophiliacs.

Neu Mejican | January 25, 2008, 10:36am | #

Francisco Torres,

No one can manage the market?

It is the framework of order that allows markets to be successful. A well ordered market will always be more successful for a larger number of people.

Like all complex adaptive systems, regulatory mechanisms will emerge in markets for the reason that they improve performance.

Anarchy and a free markets are the source of governments and managed markets. States with managed markets won the evolutionary battle. I do agree with you that too much central control is a bad thing. Those players lose the evolutionary battle.

That is why I used the term "well managed."

You can replace it with "well ordered" if you like.

Francisco Torres | January 25, 2008, 10:15pm | #

It is the framework of order that allows markets to be successful. A well ordered market will always be more successful for a larger number of people.

Seems like a classic case of begging the question, Neu Mejican... Just what is a well ordered market? What does that look like? Because if it were REALLY well-ordered, there would not be investment advisors.

Like all complex adaptive systems, regulatory mechanisms will emerge in markets for the reason that they improve performance.

"Improve performance"? In a complex system? Compared to what?