The Mostly Free Anglo-American Alliance

Ted Bromund / January 26, 2010

The 2010 edition of the Index of Economic Freedom poses a frightening paradox. Around the world, the economically freest countries are, by and large, those with a British legacy. Indeed, the top five – Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland – were either founded or influenced by the British. Of the top ten states, only Denmark, Switzerland, and Chile were not, at one point, governed from London. The lesson should be clear: economic freedom, born of the thought of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, spread round the world with the English-speaking people, to the immense benefit of both their children and those who learned from them.

And yet the two most important English-speaking countries today are sliding backwards. In 2009, the United States, for the first time, dropped out of the ranks of the free, and into those of the ‘mostly free.’ The United Kingdom dropped only slightly less than the United States, and it fell out of the top ten for the first time. Even more disturbing is the fact that the U.K. has now declined for four consecutive years, and that the level of economic freedom in Britain is now as low as it has been since the Index began to measure it in 1995. Britain’s decline is even more disturbing when compared to its major European competitors, such as Germany, France, and Italy, all of whom increased their scores in 2009. (more…)