LETTER: Freedom and prosperity have little to do with laissez-faire
Your Monday editorial, “The dramatic link between freedom and prosperity,” referenced the “Economic Freedom of the World: 2019 Annual Report” put out by the Fraser Institute. A cursory look at this report reveals that it merely looks at how well a country or state’s economy conforms to libertarian ideals in the areas of government spending, taxes, regulation, the legal system, property rights, monetary policy and trade. When the authors of the report talk about economic freedom, they are referencing only the economic freedom of business entities. Nowhere in the report does it look at the freedoms of individuals, economic or otherwise.
The report does not rely on hard data. The authors use “a simple mathematical formula to reduce subjective judgments … to represent the underlying distribution of each of the 10 components in the index.”
Libertarian ideals do not correlate to increased individual well-being nor increased individual freedom within a society. Nor does the application of libertarian ideals correlate to a strong economy. Quite the contrary.
Forbes printed an article in 2012 titled “Want A Better Economy? History Says Vote Democrat!” by Adam Hartung, which is based upon the research of Bob Deitrick and Lew Goldfarb — who actually looked at hard data, not subjective opinions.
From the Forbes article: “The authors looked at a range of economic metrics … To (the authors’) surprise … they discovered that laissez-faire policies had far less benefits than expected and, in fact, produced almost universal negative economic outcomes for the nation!”
When it comes to a stronger economy, a Democrat-led government is better than one led by Republicans.