Religion & Liberty Online

Economic Freedom Brings Freedom from Poverty

freedom-index-2015“Today, we live in the most prosperous time in human history,” notes the the Index of Economic Freedom, an annual guide published by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation. “Poverty, sicknesses, and ignorance are receding throughout the world, due in large part to the advance of economic freedom.”

The Index covers 10 freedoms – from property rights to entrepreneurship – in 186 countries. So why should we care about economic freedom around the world? Because it is a key to alleviating global poverty:

Countries with higher levels of economic freedom continue to outperform others in reducing poverty, achieving greater prosperity, and ensuring broader progress in many dimensions of social and human development. As the Index has catalogued, nations with higher degrees of economic freedom prosper because they capitalize more fully on the ability of the free-market system not only to generate, but also to reinforce dynamic growth through efficient resource allocation, value creation and innovation. Policies that promote freedom, whether through improvements in the rule of law, the promotion of competition and openness, or suitable restraints on the size and economic reach of government, turn out in practice to advance practical solutions to a wide range of economic and social challenges.

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Joe Carter

Joe Carter is a Senior Editor at the Acton Institute. Joe also serves as an editor at the The Gospel Coalition, a communications specialist for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and as an adjunct professor of journalism at Patrick Henry College. He is the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible and co-author of How to Argue like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator (Crossway).