Episode One: Economic Freedom & Quality of Life

Continue the discussion at http://www.facebook.com/economicfreedom.

Economic Freedom and Quality of Life is a short, informative video centered on the ideas of economic freedom and the societal benefits it produces. The video helps explain what economic freedom is and why it's key to improving society.

Watch Episode Two: Economic Freedom and America Today at http://youtu.be/F4fWQnguR1E

Please note that this web page displays third party links that are not generated by the creators of this video. These third party links do not represent the views of the creators of this video.

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[Herb615]

Long Live the Free Market!

[Strengthandfreedom]

No, you're the one cherry picking. This video looks at the world overall. You are picking out one example that contradicts, but ignoring the rest..

That is the definition of cherry picking.

But, please, go ahead and tell us how we can tax, spend, and regulate our way to prosperity.

[Ken Jones]

no no. income equality is sort of hogwash. income mobility is what matters. econfree (the poster of this video) has one on income mobility you may be interested in.

[Trepur349]

I think your problem is the perception that size of government is the only factor in determining whether a market is free, but Private Property Rights, Sound Money, Amount of Regulation and freedom of trade matter just as much.

[Trepur349]

Of the countries you mentioned, Iceland's score is 7.02/10, Czech Republic's is 7.08/10 (10/10=absolute free market, while 0/10 means socialist anarchy), France is 7.39/10, Germany is 7.53/10, Norway is 7.53, Austria is 7.55/10.

Just because they didn't show up in the video doesn't mean they are examples of socialism, and in fact of the 5 countries you mentioned, 3 of them fall into the Mostly free category...

[Trepur349]

Beleive it or not European countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Iceland are among the top 10 countries in the world for private property rights, they lose points for government spending, but that is 1/5 of the calculation.

For all the calculations visit:

freetheworld(dot)com/2012/EFW2­012-ch2-country-tables.pdf

[KingMacintosh]

Yes, the US's quality of life will fall. Look at it's youth (of which sadly I am unfortunately a part of)! Uneducated, clueless, hopeless. No education (worst in the 1st world), forces you to become brainwashed as an even more brainless, clueless, liberal in colleges, put you in TONS of debt, and so on. Yes, everything is going keep declining in the US for the next literally 2-3 generations and it will not even SLOW DOWN until we somehow create a generation better than all living now.

[mujmujmuj]

They conveniently left out some big European countries with pretty restrictive economics though which are doing fine.

France, Germany, Norway, Iceland, Czech republic, Austria.

I also think income/person is a pretty misleading stat for the overall wellbeing of the people though. They should have shown income equality as well imo.

[mujmujmuj]

Good video and true statistics, but framed in a sort of misleading way imo. In the choice of countries for example. They left out Norway, Germany, Iceland for example. Which has good human development index and low poverty but a relatively high restrictive government (According to heritage.org at least).

A relatively free market is of of course better than a highly restrictive one. But it is far from the only factor. I think a good balance is key.

inb4 libertarian rage :(

[Khievin7]

The less govt., the more economic freedom. You can also determine a country's relative economic freedom by determining how much of the GDP is made up of government outlays(spendings).

[DokdoSong]

Nobody is arguing for a lawless market. Did you see the video, and more importantly, notice the bit on "property rights"? Through property rights and rule of law, both of which are highly desirable aspects of a market system, negative externalities are diminished and society is better off. Nobody is arguing for anarchy.