Economic Freedom and the Building Blocks of Prosperity and Stability

For almost 20 years, the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World report has highlighted the many benefits of economic freedom: more prosperity, faster and more sustained economic growth, higher income levels, faster reduction in poverty rates, even better air quality. The correlations between high levels of economic freedom and societal wellbeing -- and low levels of economic freedom and societal ills -- are numerous. But what struck me as I glanced at this year's color-coded cover of the report is the correlation between economic freedom and stability and peace -- and the converse correlation between a lack of economic freedom and instability and conflict.

The zones of economic freedom largely correspond with the most stable, most peaceful, most secure parts of the world.

Importantly, countries that embrace economic freedom -- even if they are in unstable and war-torn regions -- are generally more stable and more secure than their neighbors.

With economic freedom, people gain when they produce goods and services others desire in mutually beneficial exchange, they explain. People from other groups become customers, employees, employers, suppliers. Together, these groups of people lay the building blocks for social trust and become essential ingredients in economic growth -- rather than enemies in a zero-sum struggle over scarce resources.

Some will argue that the pathway to a more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous world is democratic elections, not economic freedom. But there is ample evidence -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Haiti -- that free elections do not necessarily or automatically lead to stability, let alone prosperity or genuine freedom.

A scary Halloween a week late! Check out the headlines--

Euro fall past $1.08 hangs on US payroll numbers
Stocks close mostly lower as Street awaits big jobs Friday
Asia shares falter as markets await U.S. jobs data
Bank of England deputy governor says focus on date of rate rise is misleading
What 23 Top Forecasters Are Saying about Tomorrow's Job #s
U.S. employment seen raising December rate hike chances

--all becuase today's unemployment day:

8:30 AM Nonfarm Payrolls
8:30 AM Nonfarm Private Payrolls
8:30 AM Unemployment Rate
8:30 AM Hourly Earnings
8:30 AM Average Workweek
3:00 PM Consumer Credit

Everyone seems to say that this is why metals are perched on their Aug. levels and stocks are stuck @ 2% off their highs. Let's see; fwiw futures got stocks flat and metals off more than a %...

Working for yourself is the key to prosperity and even survival. As evidenced at one of America’s first colonial settlements at Jamestown....

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-property-saved-jamestown-it-america

What went wrong? ....most of the colonists died of famine, despite the “good and fruitful” soil, the abundant deer and turkey, and the “strawberries, raspberries and fruits unknown” growing wild.

The problem was the lack of private property. As Tom Bethell writes in his book The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages, “The colonists were indolent because most of them were indentured servants, expected to toil for seven years and contribute the fruits of their labor to the common store.”

Understandably, men who don’t benefit from their hard work tend not to work very hard.
.....
But when a new governor, Thomas Dale, arrived a year after the starving time, he was shocked to find the settlers bowling in the streets instead of working.

Dale’s most important reform was to institute private property. He allotted every man three acres of land and freed them to work for themselves. And then, the Virginia historian Matthew Page Andrews wrote, “As soon as the settlers were thrown upon their own resources, and each freeman had acquired the right of owning property, the colonists quickly developed what became the distinguishing characteristic of Americans - an aptitude for all kinds of craftsmanship coupled with an innate genius for experimentation and invention.”

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