Here is an excellent new video on the relationship between economic freedom and economic and social well-being. The freer a country is, the higher the quality of life and more happiness, including less poverty, more prosperity, longer life spans, cleaner environment, less corruption, lower child mortality, more civil liberties, and less unemployment. Freer countries protect individual rights to own and peacefully use private property, allow free trade freely, and have sound money, all under a universal rule of law with minimal government.

However, within recent years, the U.S. has been increasingly moving away from such freedoms as government power and spending has expanded at a gigantic rate, and the result is undermining the benefits of economic freedom for all Americans.

Please also see the following:

Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Edited by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, with a Foreword by James D. Gwartney (The Independent Institute, 2008)

Making Poor Nations Rich: Entrepreneurship and the Process of Economic Development
Edited by Benjamin Powell, with a Foreword by Deepak K. Lal (Stanford University Press for The Independent Institute, 2007)

“The Diffusion of Prosperity and Peace by Globalization,” by Erich Weede (The Independent Review, Fall 2004)

“Institutional Foundations of Economic Freedom: A time-series cross-section analysis,” by Xavier de Vanssay, Zane Spindler, and Vincent Hildebrand (Independent Institute Working Paper #51, May 20, 2004)

“The Benefits of Economic Freedom: A Survey,” by Niclas Berggren (The Independent Review, Fall 2003)

“Economic Freedom in the World, 2002,” by Jeffrey R. Clark, James D. Gwartney, and Robert A. Lawson (The Independent Review, Spring 2002)

“Prosperity and Economic Freedom: A Virtuous Cycle,” by John R. Hanson II (The Independent Review, Spring 2000)

HT: John K. Garvey