The “Economic Freedom Index” Isn’t

C4SS.org ^ | October 16, 2010 | Kevin Carson

[citizenredstater9271]

In a recent article for Reason magazine (“Freer is Better,” October 14th), John Stossel discusses the downgrading of the United States on the Economic Freedom Index from sixth to eighth place — “behind Canada!” The index is based on several matrices, including freedom of movement of capital, the amount of business regulation, and levels of taxes and spending. Apparently increased government spending coupled with the bailouts and/or purchases of the banking and auto industries were the primary cause of the change.

The United States, for the first time in sixteen years, was reclassified from “totally free” to “mostly free.”

That last bit of information suggests that the Index is based on, to say the least, a very skewed view of what “economic freedom” entails. Its standards are so warped by neoliberal ideology as to be almost entirely suspect (that the Index is compiled by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, in collaboration with the Wall Street Journal, should tell you something.)

The United States was “totally free” economically until this year? That’s enough to suggest, right there, that the Index focuses on a narrow range of “economic freedom” criteria that are most amenable to corporate power, without looking critically at the forms of state intervention most centrally important for strengthening corporate power.

For example, by any valid measure of economic freedom, the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would have been considered an upward surge in statism and protectionism unequaled since (at least) the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. But Heritage, a co-creator of the Index, is one of the most strident advocates, inside the pseudo-libertarian beltway establishment, of global “intellectual property” enforcement expansion.

The Economic Freedom Index fails to distinguish between the primary, structural forms of state intervention that prop up corporate power.....

[citizenredstater9271]

America's economy has gone down the hole b/c of state intervention. Freedom is dead.

[SeekAndFind]

So, what’s the point they’re trying to drive at?

That the USA is actually more free than the Index indicates?

[citizenredstater9271]

That America’s market is far from free.

[Oztrich Boy]

Well the author seems to not understand or is misrepresnting the Index.

As I recall the actual story is the downgrading of the US index status from 82% to 79%. Which pushed it below the 80% boundary between "Free" and "Partially Free".
(The actual classifications - not the "totally free" and "Mostly free" nonsence)

The idea that anyone classed the US (or any nation) as 100% economically free seems to be a myth created by this writer.

[altair]

That America’s market is far from free.

... And has been for a looooong time (at least so long as my lifetime goes). Even the Great Ones like The Gipper could only reverse some of the downward spiral and only temporarily.

Bush/Clinton and Obama have been disasters.

Oh and if you don't have a good background in the fall of the Roman Empire, now would be a good time to start doing a bit of historical research.