The world’s freest economy is Singapore, followed closely by Switzerland.
That’s according to the 2023 edition of the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.
The bad news is that there are only four nation that enjoy “free” economies.
The worse news is that the global average for economic freedom has declined.
Here are some highlights (or lowlights) from the Index‘s executive summary.
The 2023 Index…reveals a world economy that, taken as a whole, is “mostly unfree.” Regrettably, the global average economic freedom score has fallen from the previous year’s 60.0 to 59.3—the lowest it has been over the past two decades. …fiscal soundness has deteriorated significantly. …only four countries (down from seven in the previous year) recorded economic freedom scores of 80 or more, putting them in the ranks of the economically “free;” 23 countries earned a designation of “mostly free” by recording scores of 70.0 to 79.9… On the opposite side of the spectrum, more than 50 percent of the countries…have registered economic freedom scores below 60. …and 28 countries, including China and Iran, are in the economically “repressed” category.
American readers may be wondering about the United States.
Sadly, the US only ranks #25, which is lower than many European welfare states (which generally have higher fiscal burdens, but are more market-oriented in areas like trade and regulation).
What’s especially depressing is that the United States was economically “free” less than 20 years ago.
It’s also depressing that the United Kingdom has suffered a big fall as well.
In a column for RealClearMarkets, Rainer Zitelmann comments on declining economic liberty in the US and UK.
The United States is in imminent danger of dropping out of the Index of Economic Freedom’s “mostly free.” …In the latest ranking, the U.S. only just scrapes into the second-best of the five categories (“mostly free”). If the United States were to lose just one more point in next year’s ranking, it would find itself in the “moderately free” category… The U.S. has progressively dropped down the rankings in recent years. There are now a total of 16 European countries that are economically freer, i.e. more capitalist, than the United States, such as Switzerland, Ireland, Estonia, Luxembourg, Denmark and Sweden. Even Germany and Austria are considered economically freer than the U.S. …Great Britain has already slipped out of the “mostly free” category and into the “moderately free” group of countries. With its score of 69.9 points, Great Britain has the worst rating since the Index was first calculated way back in 1995. In 2006, Great Britain was still on a respectable 80.4 points!
I’m very disappointed that Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden have all contributed to America’s deteriorating score. A bipartisan mess.
Just like the bipartisan mess in the United Kingdom – thanks to Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, and Sunak.
Reagan and Thatcher must be rolling over in their graves.
P.S. I’m not surprised that North Korea is the most economically “repressed” nation, followed by Cuba and Venezuela.
