Freedom!

“Sure, you can’t drive, vote, or walk around unaccompanied.  But at least you’re not in Venezuela!  Savor your economic freedom!’

For whatever reason, I’m always fascinated by libertarian “Freedom Indexes.” Does CATO’s international comparison consider equal inheritance rights but not the ability of a woman to choose not to carry a pregnancy to term when measuring women’s rights? I think you know the answer to that. Does the methodology apparently assume that all “government transfers and subsidies” and “administrative requirements” on business represent net reductions in freedom? But of course. Do its choices lead to such results as Hong Kong being designated the freest place on Earth and Venezuela being considered less free than…Saudi Arabia? Yup.

And yet, despite the various ways in which the game is rigged, I also note that all of the major Scandinavian states and Germany still rank as more “free” than the United States. “The regions that had greater overall levels of freedom exhibited higher ratings in personal freedom relative to economic freedom than the less free,” the analysis concludes. Maybe there’s a lesson there!