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Comment by he778 | Hacker News Reader

Countries with the highest economic freedom scores in the world have the highest GDP per capitas in the world. That's factual proof that friendlier economic environments make better businesses, which benefit workers who receive the highest incomes in the world. Hong Kong and Singapore are great examples.

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Absolutely agreed. Social, political, and moral issues are just red herrings. Workers only care about two things: 1) How much they make and 2) How much economic freedom their employers have.

Please, read some econ besides at heritage or cato. The correlation is not that strong, see [1] and specifically [2] [3] and [4]. [2] demolishes your argument -- look at the horizontal spread in the developed countries. These indicators are hard to measure, too; for an alternate measure, look at [3]: examine the vertical distance between Portugal and Australia. Or, if you prefer, in the middle of the graph between Ja/UK and Ireland. Or on the right side between NZ and the US. It's safe to say that economic freedom doesn't correlate all that well with GDP, not to mention that correlation neq causation.

Not to mention for every Singapore there's an Ireland to match.

[1] http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/sta...

[2] http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/economic-fr...

[3] http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/economic-fr...

This is getting a little absurd trying to argue with you since it seems like I would have to break down economic concepts to you because I know you do not come from an economics background.

Any economic index, regardless of its source, will show that freer trade shows more economic growth. Singapore surpasses Ireland in terms of economic growth; also, Ireland adopted more free market principles to achieve its growth when it started to privatize its industries. All the countries you mention that have high GDP per capita and high GDP growth have high economic freedom scores.

Trying to argue against freer trade for economic growth is like trying to argue with someone who says the Earth isn't round. China, India, Poland, Russia, etc., etc., grew their economies rapidly by moving to privatization and eliminating barriers to trade. Economists across the aisle support free trade; for example, read Paul Krugman's views on free trade in his Wikipedia entry (or research Goolsbee's, Geithnner's, Stglitz's, DeLong's, Sach's, Summers', etc, etc, etc, -- not to mention the plethora of economists' from across the other aisle -- views on free trade's effects on economic growth). This concept is not even debated anymore among the world's leading economists.

Then how do you explain how heavily-regulated California has a higher GDP-per-capita than lightly-regulated Texas?

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