Women Should Have the Freedom to Discriminate against Men

I’ve previously argued that “freedom of association” is the best way of dealing with thorny social issues such as baking cakes for gay weddings and transgender bathroom usage.

Simply stated, people should have the freedom to do business with each other – or not do business with each other – based on their personal preferences.

I may disapprove of how various people exercise those preferences, but I wouldn’t ask a politician or bureaucrat to intervene.

Which brings us to today’s topic. Here are some excerpts from a New York Post story about a not-quite-women-only business.

The Wing was supposed to be the ultimate sanctuary for women: decidedly feminine in design, with walls and furniture in shades of millennial pink and a thermometer set at a women’s-clothing-friendly 72 degrees. …It offers perks that other co-working spaces can’t match — showers stocked with high-end beauty products…the company’s expansion and popularity has brought up a completely different issue…men wanting to come in and hang out. …it’s not against the rules for men to be at the lady lair, which costs anywhere from $185 to $250 a month in the US to join. But that’s only because legally the company can’t ban men. …The problem, multiple members have told The Post, is that the men physically take up too much space with their bigger bodies… While they aren’t using the members-only changing rooms and showers (yet), they are in the guest bathrooms. …The Wing…never had a membership policy, because, reps say, they didn’t think they’d need one. Instead, they simply billed themselves as a women’s co-working space and social club. …the New York City Commission on Human Rights…in 2018 opened an investigation into the company. The Wing’s large membership — more than 11,000 worldwide, according to reps — meant it couldn’t pass as a “social club,” and therefore can’t discriminate based on gender.

My reaction is that the New York City Commission on Human Rights should mind its own business.

If women want a female-only place to interact and do business, it’s not the job of government to interfere.

Yes, that means discrimination against men. Maybe that’s wrong, at least on some level, but not everything that’s wrong should be illegal.

Here’s another example, though the discrimination is based on politics rather than gender. As reported by the Hill, a California restaurant wants freedom not to associate with overt Trump supporters.

A restaurant owner and award-winning author in California tweeted that he will no longer serve customers who wear “Make America Great Again” hats at his eatery. “It hasn’t happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served…”Some diners told The Associated Press on Thursday that they understand the restaurant owner’s position but added that they have mixed feelings about the ban. …“I see where he’s coming from, but I don’t think you should just keep people out because of a hat,” Jamie Hwang, a San Mateo resident, told the news agency. Another diner, Esther Shek, told the publication that she believes the hats have “come to represent racism, intolerance, exclusivity” but also added that López-Alt’s choice to refuse supporters of the president might spell trouble later.

In this case, I definitely think the restaurant owner is being petty. But I also recognize that it’s his restaurant. It’s his money and it’s his property.

By the way, it’s worth noting that freedom of association is a two-way street.

It means private businesses can refuse customers, but it also means customers can reject businesses.

A black couple in Georgia turned away a white repairman who showed up to their house while flying a large Confederate flag, leaving the couple in utter “disbelief” before saying he wasn’t welcome. …After a polite conversation with the contractor, Brown said, he was in “disbelief” that the man he hired from Facebook’s local marketplace would think the flag was acceptable to fly during house calls. Brown’s wife then came outside and bluntly turned the man away, video shows. …The repairman offered to remove the flag, but the damage was already done. He later reached out to the couple on Facebook to say he didn’t mean to offend them, Zeke Brown told ABC News. Brown replied to the contractor, explaining that the flag is “extremely offensive” to people of color while urging him to do some research.

Incidentally, I may be a bit of a Pollyanna on these issues, but I’m glad that the contractor reached out to the couple with an apology.

Having spent many years in Georgia and having interacted occasionally with people who displayed confederate flags, I concluded that very few of them were motivated by racial animus. It was more a form of social signalling about being rural, or being a hell raiser (a la Dukes of Hazard).

That being said, they obviously were not sensitive to the fact that blacks had a much more jaundiced view of what the flag represents.

Which is why I hope many of them eventually had the kind of epiphany that led a Texas man to get rid of his rebel flag tattoo. Simply stated, we should care about the feelings of others.

But I’m digressing.

Let’s conclude by addressing the negative aspect of freedom of association, which is that some bad people will discriminate for odious reasons.

The stereotypical example is a business in Alabama in 1958 that refused to serve black customers. This is partly inaccurate because much of the discrimination during that era was the result of government policies that mandated segregation (a.k.a., the Jim Crow laws).

But I’m sure there was also plenty of genuinely private discrimination.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that such discrimination generally is punished by market forces.

And the best news is that our society is now increasingly vigilant against bias.

For instance, the Washington Post reported about a bakery that gained customers for being welcoming to everyone.

Nino Barbalace…opened a bakery and cafe in Dorchester, Mass. …He affixed a tiny pride flag to his restaurant’s window for the pride parade in June, and it has remained there since. Then came the Yelp review.“Well, that flag says all when you delve deeper and see the real customer base here, it’s clearly geared and catered ONLY to those who rally behind the rainbow flag.” That alarmed Barbalace, who posted an image of the one-star review on the restaurant’s Facebook page. “All are welcome at Zia Gianna, even this gentleman. We’d love to show him some kindness…” Barbalace wrote in his post on Aug. 13. …Customers rallied in response. Tiffany Andrade told Fox 25 that she dropped by the cafe on Friday to offer support. …“We love your place, and love your love for everyone no matter what,” one customer said. Another said: “Haven’t been in to your restaurant before, but now I’m putting it on my must-visit list. Love is love is love. Keep flying that flag!”

Kudos to Mr. Barbalace, by the way, for reaching out to the unfriendly reviewer.

The United States has made great progress and is one of the most tolerant places in the world.

But there’s always room for more progress and you’re far more likely to change hearts and minds with outreach – Daryl Davis and Matthew Stevenson are role models – rather than demonization.

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Hong Kong’s Tenuous Future

For libertarians, there aren’t many good role models in the world. There are a few small jurisdictions such as Bermuda, Monaco, and the Cayman Islands that are worth highlighting because of strong rule of law and good fiscal policy. There are also a few medium-sized nations that are – by modern standards – very market-oriented, such as Switzerland, Singapore, and New Zealand.

But Hong Kong generally gets top rankings for economic liberty. Which helps to explain why I’m so worried about a potential crackdown by China.

As I noted in the interview, intervention by Chinese security would not be good news for Hong Kong.

But it also would be bad news for China’s economy. Especially since it already is dealing with the adverse consequences of both internal statism and external protectionism.

Indeed, the only reason I’m not totally pessimistic is that the power elite in China doubtlessly would experience a big loss in personal wealth if there is a crackdown.

That being said, I can’t imagine President Xi will allow China’s implicit control over Hong Kong to diminish. So I’m reluctant to make any prediction.

But I very much hope that Hong Kong will emerge unscathed, in part because I don’t want to lose a very good example of the link between economic liberty and national prosperity.

Marian Tupy, writing for CapX, explains that Hong Kong is a great role model.

In 1950, …compared to the advanced countries of the West, Hong Kong was still a relative backwater. …the average resident of the colony earned 35 per cent and 25 per cent compared to British and American citizens respectively. Today, average income in Hong Kong is 37 per cent and 3 per cent higher than that in the United Kingdom and America. …Unlike some British ex-colonies and the United Kingdom itself, Hong Kong never experimented with socialism. Historically, the government played only a minor role in the economy… The territory kept taxes flat and low… The territory followed a policy of unilateral trade liberalisation, which is to say that the colony allowed other countries to export to Hong Kong tariff-free, regardless of whether other countries reciprocated or not. …In 1755, the great Scottish economist Adam Smith…wrote, “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice…” Hong Kong prospered because it followed Smith’s recommendations.

Here’s his chart showing how Hong Kong has surpassed both the United Kingdom and United States in terms of per-capita economic output.

In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Jairaj Devadiga explains a key factor in Hong Kong’s success.

Sir John Cowperthwaite was Hong Kong’s financial secretary from 1961-71 and is widely credited for the prosperity Hong Kong enjoys today. An ardent free-marketeer, Cowperthwaite believed that government should not try to manage the economy. One salient feature of Cowperthwaite’s policies: His administration didn’t collect any economic data during his tenure. Not even gross domestic product was calculated. When the American economist Milton Friedman asked why, Cowperthwaite replied that once the data were made available, officials would invariably use them to make the case for government intervention in the economy. …Without data, busybody bureaucrats had no way of justifying interference in the economy. In Cowperthwaite’s Hong Kong, the government did only the bare minimum necessary, such as maintaining law and order… The rest was left to the private sector. …When asked what poor countries should do to emulate Hong Kong’s success, he replied, “They should abolish the office of national statistics.”

Amen.

When you give data to politicians and bureaucrats, they generally find something they don’t like and then can’t resist the temptation to intervene.

Now that we’ve looked at some of the factors that enabled Hong Kong’s prosperity, let’s consider what may happen if there’s a crackdown by China.

Professor Tyler Cowen shares a pessimistic assessment in his Bloomberg column.

Hong Kong has been a kind of bellwether for the state of freedom in the wider world. …By 1980, Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose” series was on television, portraying Hong Kong as a free economy experiencing huge gains in living standards. The skyline was impressive, and you could get all the necessary permits to start a business in Hong Kong in just a few days. The territory showed how Friedman’s theories worked in the real world. Hong Kong stood as a symbol of a new age of freer markets and growing globalization. …Hong Kong still ranks near or at the top of several indices of economic freedom. But…[n]ot only is there the specter of Chinese intervention, but there is also a broader understanding that the rules of the game can change at any time… Meanwhile, many Hong Kong residents know their behavior is being monitored and graded, and they know the role of the Chinese government will only grow. …Freedom is not merely the ability to buy and sell goods at minimum regulation and a low tax rate, variables that are readily picked up by economic freedom indices. Freedom is also about the…legitimacy and durability of their political institutions. …Circa 2019, Hong Kong is a study in the creeping power and increasing sophistication of autocracy. While it is possible there could be a Tiananmen-like massacre in the streets of Hong Kong, it is more likely that its mainland overlords will opt for more subtle ways of choking off Hong Kong’s remaining autonomy and freedoms. …right now, I would bet on the Chinese Communist Party over the protesters.

If Cowen is right, one thing that surely will happen is that money will flee.

And that may already be happening. Here are some excerpts from a Bloomberg report.

Private bankers are being flooded with inquiries from investors in Hong Kong…wealthy investors are setting up ways to move their money out of the former British colony more quickly, bankers and wealth managers said. A major Asian wealth manager said it has received a large flow of new money in Singapore from Hong Kong over recent weeks, requesting not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. One Hong Kong private banker said the majority of the new queries he receives aren’t coming from the super-rich, most of whom already have alternative destinations for their money, but from individuals with assets in the $10 million to $20 million range. …The extradition fight reinforced concerns among Hong Kong investors and democracy advocates alike that the Beijing-backed government is eroding the legal wall separating the local judicial system from the mainland’s. …The recent demonstrations are the latest trigger in a long process of Chinese money flowing to Singapore, London, New York and other centers outside Beijing’s reach. …“Hong Kong has shot itself in the foot,” said Chong, a Malaysian who has permanent residency in both Hong Kong and Singapore. “Can you imagine Singapore allowing this?”

And keep in mind that big money is involved. Here’s a chart that accompanied the analysis.

Looking at these numbers, I want to emphasize again that China also will suffer if a crackdown causes money to flee Hong Kong.

Which is President Xi should resist the urge to intervene.

I’ll close with this visual depiction of Hong Kong’s amazing growth.

Hong Kong’s Kowloon peninsula in 1964 and again in 2016 pic.twitter.com/gcOlTZXHUE

— Devon (@devonzuegel) August 28, 2018

Let’s hope Beijing doesn’t try to reverse this progress.

P.S. You’ll notice that I didn’t advocate for democracy, either in this column or in the interview. That’s because I’m more concerned with protecting and promoting liberty. Yes, it’s good to have a democratic form of government. If I understand correctly, there’s also an empirical link between political freedom and economic freedom. But sometimes democracy simply means the ability to take other people’s money, using government as the middleman. That’s why the people of not-very-democratic Hong Kong are much better off than the people of democratic Greece.

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Economic Liberty and the Constitution

Two days ago, I wrote about how the Constitution was designed, in large part, to protect Americans from majoritarianism.

The Supreme Court is doing a reasonably good job of protecting some of our liberties (or, in the Heller case, restoring our liberties), but I point out in this clip from a recent interview that the Justices have failed to protect our property rights.

But since I’m now a lawyer, let’s focus instead on what legal scholars have written on this issue.

The late Professor Bernard Siegan authored a great book, Economic Liberties and the Constitution. If you care about these issues, you should buy it.

In the meantime, here are some excerpts from an article he wrote for Chapman Law Review.

The original Constitution of 1787 granted limited powers to each of the three branches of government… The federal government was limited in power so that it could not deprive citizens of their privileges and immunities… The Constitution was passed by delegates who had lived under and were steeped in the common law. Most terms and provisions of the Constitution are of common law origin and cannot fully be understood without reference to the common law. Thus, although there were no specific protections for the right of property or economic activity or press and speech, the United States government was given no power in the Constitution to deprive people of these common law rights.

Siegan explains some of the thinking that motivated James Madison.

The most influential Framer of both the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights was James Madison, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Virginia… He spent considerable time preparing for the Convention by studying the writings of leading authorities on government, particularly the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, who advocated freedom for commerce as essential to the viability and progress of a nation. As a result of his…extensive review of literature on the subject of government, Madison concluded that for a nation to be politically and economically successful considerable limitation of government powers was required, enabling the productive, inventive, and competitive talents of the people to flourish. He believed that the welfare of a nation mandated the creation of a commercial republic that would depend on freedom of the markets and not on the authority of the state.

There’s also an excellent book, The Dirty Dozen, written by Robert Levy and William Mellor, which outlines twelve terrible Supreme Court decisions that expanded the power of government (including Wickard v. Filburn and Kelo v City of New London).

Here are some excerpts from remarks by Levy.

The Tenth Amendment says quite clearly that the federal government is authorized to exercise only certain enumerated powers, the ones that are listed there and that are specifically delegated to the national government. The Tenth Amendment goes on to say, if the power is not listed there, if it’s not enumerated and delegated to the national government, then it is reserved to the states or, depending on the provisions of state constitutions and state laws, to the people. …No matter how worthwhile the goal, no matter how much Congress thinks that it has identified a really important problem, and no matter how sure Congress is that it knows how to fix the problem, if there’s no constitutional authority to pursue it, then the federal government has to step aside and leave the matter to the states or private parties.

In other words, the Founders weren’t joking when they listed the enumerated powers.

They even included an amendment as part of the Bill of Rights to reinforce those limitations on the power of government.

Speaking of amendments, advocates of bigger government could have used that approach to expand the power of Washington. But, as Levy points out, they didn’t need to follow the rules because the Supreme Court decided to no longer protect economic liberty.

…the Supreme Court has accomplished through the back door what the states and the Congress could not have accomplished through the prescribed amendment process. Regrettably, I think, the modern court has lost its compass… Much of the court’s enduring mischief…started during the New Deal and continues today.

Last but not least, Professor Richard Epstein (my former debating partner) has a great book entitled The Classical Liberal Constitution. It also belongs in your library (and will help underscore the differences between classical liberalism and today’s statist version of liberalism).

Until then, here are excerpts from one of his articles.

…the Constitution…does offer broad and specific protections to private property through the Takings Clause (“nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation”^4×4. U.S. Const. amend. V. ) and through the Due Processes Clauses of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments (providing that neither the federal government nor the states may deprive any person of “life, liberty or property, without due process of law”^5×5. Id.; id. amend. XIV. ). …a unified conceptual framework should apply to what are called economic and personal liberties, even if it were possible to articulate some hard-edged separation between them. The analytical origin of this position is that voluntary contracting, whether for the transfer of goods and services or the formation of long-term associations, works as well in the one domain as in the other.

Epstein points out that there was a spirited debate when the Constitution was drafted and adopted, but both sides in that debate would oppose the expansion of government power that largely began in the 1930s.

…there were many differences between the Federalists and Antifederalists, but anyone would be hard pressed to find a single point of contention that could be cashed out to support the hallmark legislation of the New Deal. …the Contracts Clause imposes limitations on how the state could regulate ot only existing contracts, but also those contracts that had not yet been made. And whatever doubts that existed were largely removed by the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, where the correct reading of the Privileges or Immunities, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses all place powerful limitation on the scope of state power to regulate economic and noneconomic matters alike. …neither the Federalists nor the Antifederalists in the ratification debates supported such massive federal schemes as the National Labor Relations Act.

Let’s close with this clever image someone posted on Facebook.

P.S. Here’s some satire about Obama and the Bill of Rights.

P.P.S. And here’s what Professor Epstein said about his interactions with Obama at the University of Chicago.

P.P.P.S. I image Levy/Mellor book would be re-titled The Dirty Thirteen if it was updated to include the horrific Obamacare decision.

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Majoritarianism and Democracy vs. Liberty and the Constitution

While she’s mostly known for radical proposals such as confiscatory tax rates and the Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also made waves with recent comments about imposing “democracy” on the economy.

In a discussion last year at Ponoma College in California, I explained why majoritarianism is misguided.

For all intents and purposes, unchecked democracy gives 51 percent of the people a right to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people.

Thankfully, America’s Founders realized that approach was incompatible with individual liberty.

They drafted a Constitution that explicitly limited the power of politicians (and thus also limited the power of people who vote for politicians).

Why? Because they understood history.

Professor Victor Davis Hanson explains how they recognized the dangers of majoritarianism.

The half-millennia success of the stable Roman republican system inspired later French and British Enlightenment thinkers. Their abstract tripartite system of constitutional government stirred the Founding Fathers to concrete action. Americans originally were terrified of what 51 percent of the people in an unchecked democracy might do on any given day—and knew that ancient democracies had always become more not less radical and thus more unstable. For all the squabbles between Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, they agreed that a republic, not a direct democracy, was a far safer and stable choice of governance. …We often think that a Bill of Rights was designed to protect Americans from monarchs and dictators. It certainly was. But the Founders were just as terrified of what that the majority of elected representatives without restraint might legally do on any given day to an individual citizen. …All consensual governments are prone to scary wild swings of mob-like emotion—and to demagogues who can almost rein in or goad the dêmos. But the Founders sought to make American government immune to Athenian-style craziness through a system of checks and balances that vented popular frenzies without a great deal of damage.

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Professor Gary Galles explains the difference between liberty and democracy.

…far too little attention seems to be given to the differences between democracy—the process by which we select members of government—and liberty—the key to good government. …our Constitution and Bill of Rights…put some things beyond majority determination… Unfortunately, democracy…is entirely consistent with choices that destroy liberty…the growing reach of government makes our exercise of democracy an increasing threat to liberty, defending that liberty requires understanding the limits of democratic determination.

George Will, citing the work of Professor Randy Barnett, explains that the fight is – or should be – between statist majoritarians and libertarian constitutionalists.

Regarding jurisprudence, Democrats are merely results-oriented, interested in…expanding government’s power… Republicans…have grown lazily comfortable with rhetorical boilerplate in praise of “judicial restraint.” …all progressives are Hobbesians in that they say America is dedicated to a process — majoritarian decision-making that legitimates the government power it endorses. Not all Lockeans are libertarians, but all libertarians are Lockeans in that they say America is dedicated to a condition — liberty. …Lockeans favor rigorous judicial protection of certain individual rights — especially private property and freedom of contract — that define and protect the zone of sovereignty within which people are free to act as they please. Hobbesians say the American principle is the right of the majority to have its way. …Lockeans say the Constitution, properly construed and enforced by the judiciary, circumscribes the majoritarian principle by protecting all rights that are crucial to individual sovereignty. …Barnett says, yes, the Constitution — “the law that governs those who govern us” — is libertarian. And a Lockean president would nominate justices who would capaciously define and vigorously defend, against abuses by majoritarian government.

You don’t have to be a Randian to heartily endorse and embrace this sentiment (h/t: Libertarian Reddit).

The most cogent warning about majoritarianism comes from the great Thomas Sowell.

"In the modern welfare state, a vote becomes a license to take what others create — and these others include generations yet unborn."

— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) April 19, 2017

To emphasize the dangers of majoritarianism, I’ll close by simply citing Brazil in the past and Venezuela today.

P.S. Though I must admit that the Swiss are an example of how majoritarianism can lead to good outcomes.

P.P.S. I strongly encourage you to read what Walter Williams wrote on this topic.

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Individualism and Society

When talking with people who dislike free enterprise, it’s quite common that they will admit (at least once I share some of the evidence) that markets produce more prosperity than statism.

But that generally doesn’t convince them. In part, this is because they believe it is wrong to have significant income disparities. Especially if they’ve been snookered into thinking that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor.

To be fair, they generally don’t favor rabid redistribution. And I rarely find anyone who agrees with the twisted IMF prescription to hurt the poor so long as the rich suffer even more. But it bothers them that some people are poor and others are rich.

They’re also skeptical about capitalism because they think it implies the stereotype of a Randian world of ultra individualism where people are so fixated on making money that family and community are afterthoughts.

It is true that individualism-based societies generate much more prosperity than collectivism-based societies, at least according to research from scholars at the University of California at Berkeley.

But does that additional growth come at a cost? Are individualism-based societies cold, harsh, and disconnected?

We have the answer, thanks to a study authored by academics at the University of Tartu in Estonia. They investigated this very issue.

Many social scientists have predicted that one inevitable consequence of modernization is the unlimited growth of individualism, which poses serious threats to the organic unity of society. Others have argued that autonomy and independence are necessary conditions for the development of interpersonal cooperation and social solidarity. We reanalyzed available data on the relationship between individualism-collectivism and social capital within one country (the United States) and across 42 countries.

They considered the hypothesis that individualism corrodes community.

…many theorists have seen the unlimited growth of individualism as a threat to the organic unity between individuals and society. Particularly in France, the concept of individualism has historically carried a negative meaning, denoting individual isolation and social dissolution… For many critics, individualism mainly fosters social atomization, which, in its turn, leads to the disappearance of social solidarity and to the dominance of egoism and distrust. …Thus, in the opinion of communitarians, society should exert a balancing force to excessive individualism, which endangers both individual rights and civic order.

And they also considered the opposite hypothesis, which says that individualism builds social capital.

…individualism does not necessarily jeopardize organic unity and social solidarity. On the contrary, the growth of individuality, autonomy, and self-sufficiency may be perceived as necessary conditions for the development of interpersonal cooperation, mutual dependence, and social solidarity. …normative or ethical individualism even elevates social welfare by promoting trust as well as by encouraging people to work creatively, from which others can benefit…individualism (as it is conceptualized in psychology) is also associated with higher self-esteem and optimism…individualistic cultures are higher on subjective wellbeing…and they report higher levels of quality-of-life… People in individualistic cultures tend to have more acquaintances and friends…they are more extraverted and open to new experience…and they are more trusting and tolerant toward people of different races.

The authors crunched numbers for states and nations.

Here’s what they found in American states.

…states with higher levels of social capital tend to be more individualistic. According to Figure 1, high levels of both community-based social capital and individualism prevail in the states that belong to the Plains region: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Low social capital and collectivistic tendencies, on the other hand, can be found in the area of the former Confederacy, in the states of South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and so on.

As you can see, there’s a clear correlation showing that more individualism is associated with higher levels of social capital.

And the same is true for countries.

Figure 2 shows that the countries with the highest levels of interpersonal trust are the countries most characterized by high levels of individualism: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States.

As you can see from the chart, interpersonal trust and individualism are correlated.

As is so often the case, it’s interesting to look at the outliers.

The authors note that Utah and Nevada are outlier states. I’m assuming those results may have something to do with Mormonism and gambling, respectively. But maybe there are other explanations.

Looking at nations with high levels of interpersonal trust, China is a big outlier at one end and the Nordic nations are outliers at another end. For what it’s worth, the authors admit that the Chinese results are counterintuitive.

Now let’s circle back and consider policy implications.

I’ve argued that big government undermines charity, it undermines civil society, and that it undermines societal capital as well.

In a free society, by contrast, people have the ability to strive and prosper in order to have the time and resources to enjoy the things – such as family, neighborhood, friendship and community – that are the sources of happiness and contentment.

Though I confess I’m not sure how to best explain this to skeptics.

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There’s No Galt’s Gulch, but New Zealand, Switzerland, and Hong Kong Are the Next-Best Alternatives

What’s the world’s freest nation?

I’ve suggested that Australia as an option if the United States ever suffers a Greek-style collapse, but my answer wasn’t based solely on that country’s level of freedom.

Another option is to look at Economic Freedom of the World, which is an excellent resource, but it only measures the degree to which a nation allows free markets.

If you want to know the world’s freest nation, the best option is to peruse the Human Freedom Index.  First released in 2013, it combines economic freedom and personal freedom.

The 2018 version has just been published, and, as you can see, New Zealand is the world’s most-libertarian nation, followed by Switzerland and Hong Kong. The United States is tied with Sweden for #17.

If you scan the top-20 list, you’ll notice that North America, Western Europe, and the Antipodes (Australia and New Zealand) dominate.

And that also is apparent on this map (darker is better). So maybe “western civilization” isn’t so bad after all.

Here is an explanation of the report’s guiding methodology. Simply stated, it’s a ranking of “negative liberty,” which is basically freedom from government coercion.

The Human Freedom Index casts a wide net in an attempt to capture as broad a set of freedoms as could be clearly identified and measured. …Freedom in our usage is a social concept that recognizes the dignity of individuals and is defined by the absence of coercive constraint. …Freedom thus implies that individuals have the right to lead their lives as they wish as long as they respect the equal rights of others. Isaiah Berlin best elucidated this notion of freedom, commonly known as negative liberty. In the simplest terms, negative liberty means noninterference by others. …This index is thus an attempt to measure the extent to which the negative rights of individuals are respected in the countries observed. By negative rights, we mean freedom from interference—predominantly by government—in people’s right to choose to do, say, or think anything they want, provided that it does not infringe on the rights of others to do likewise.

Unsurprisingly, there is a correlation between personal freedom and economic freedom.

Though it’s not a perfect correlation. The Index highlights some of the exceptions.

Some countries ranked consistently high in the human freedom subindexes, including Switzerland and New Zealand, which ranked in the top 10 in both personal and economic freedom. By contrast, some countries that ranked high on personal freedom rank significantly lower in economic freedom. For example, Sweden ranked 3rd in personal freedom but 43rd in economic freedom; Slovenia ranked 23rd in personal freedom but 71st in economic freedom; and Argentina ranked in 42nd place in personal freedom but 160th in economic freedom. Similarly, some countries that ranked high on economic freedom found themselves significantly lower in personal freedom. For example, Singapore ranked in 2nd place in economic freedom while ranking 62nd in personal freedom; the United Arab Emirates ranked 37th in economic freedom but 149th in personal freedom; and Qatar ranked 38th in economic freedom but 134th in personal freedom.

This raises an interesting question. If you had to move, and assuming you couldn’t move to a nation that offered both types of freedom, would you prefer a place like Sweden or a place like Singapore?

As an economist, my bias would be to choose Singapore.

But if you look at the nations in the top-10 for personal freedom, they’re all great place to live (and they tend to be very market-oriented other than their big welfare states). So I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone for instead choosing Sweden.

P.S. There are some very attractive micro-states that were not including in the Human Freedom Index, presumably because of inadequate data. I suspect places such as Bermuda, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and the Cayman Islands would all get very high scores if they were included.

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What Makes Someone Decide to Be a Conservative or Liberal, a Statist or Libertarian?

Politically aware people generally understand the policy differences between conservative and liberals (as they are currently defined, not classical liberals).

For those who don’t follow politics, there’s an accurate – and amusing – guide from Playboy that explains the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

And it includes libertarians and greens as well, which is a nice touch for those of us with unconventional views.

But what actually causes someone to pick an ideology?

In February, I shared a bunch of research that looked at how various personal characteristics are associated with – and may even cause – political differences.

This is interesting research. Though I suspect it irks many of us, regardless of our philosophical orientation, since it implies that our views aren’t necessarily the result of reason.

According to an article in Business Insider, this type of research even shows that differences extend beyond politics.

…what in the brains of conservative and liberal voters actually drive their belief systems? Scientists have been researching the psychological differences between people with different stances, and there are a few key ways that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum see the world. …Liberal and conservative tastes in music and art are different. …liberals enjoyed more cubist and abstract art. …conservative readers tended to say they’d rather visit Times Square than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. …conservative voters were found to be more likely to agree with statements like: “I often have tender, concerned feelings for my family members who are less fortunate than me.” But their responses suggested such feelings did not extend to people from other countries. Liberals, on the other hand, were more likely to feel that same level of compassion for people around the world, and even to non-human and imaginary subjects like animals and aliens. …A longitudinal study of more than 16,000 people in the UK found that… “Children who showed higher levels of conduct problems — that is, aggression, fighting, stealing from peers — were more likely to be economically left-leaning.”

What about libertarians?

In his Bloomberg column, Professor Tyler Cowen reveals that we are the most thoughtful group.

Libertarians measure as being the most analytical political group. That’s according to something called the cognitive reflection test, which is designed to measure whether an individual will override his or her immediate emotional responses and give a question further consideration. So if you aren’t a libertarian, maybe you ought to give that philosophy another look. It’s a relatively exclusive club, replete with people who are politically engaged, able to handle abstract arguments and capable of deeper reflection.

Trump voters and independents, by contrast, are less informed and more impulsive.

What else can we learn from this new study of political and analytical tendencies, conducted by Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand of Yale University? …one group that measured as especially nonanalytical was Democrats who crossed party lines and voted for Donald Trump. There is a stereotype of a less well-educated voter, perhaps both white and male, who reacts negatively and emotionally to Hillary Clinton… For all the dangers of stereotyping, the study’s data are consistent with that picture. …independents do poorly on the analytic dimension. …that group measures as relatively impulsive and prone to less informed judgments.

And here’s some research on “free-marketeers” from the U.K.-based Times.

Clever children will probably grow up to have free-market economic views, according to new academic research. The direct link between intelligence and economic conservatism holds true even if the self-interest that high earners have in a lower-tax, free-market economy is taken into account. The authors of the research, Gary Lewis and Timothy Bates, psychologists at Royal Holloway, University of London and Edinburgh University respectively, state: “Intelligence assessed in childhood [ages 10-11] was predictive of adult [30-33] economic conservatism.” …The authors studied data from the 1970 British Cohort Study and the National Child Development Study of 1958, both of which measured the intelligence of more than 17,000 children before they were distorted by educational differences. The authors also adjusted for sex, parental social class and childhood conduct problems.

I like these results, for the obvious reason.

But also notice that the authors adjusted the data based on the assumption that a “lower-tax, free-market economy” generates greater wealth. Interesting (and accurate) admission.

Now let’s consider the statist side of the spectrum.

According to some revised research that was reported by the New York Post, our friends on the left have authoritarian tendencies.

A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong. The American Journal of Political Science published a correction this year saying that the 2012 paper has “an error” — and that liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism. …“The descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck’s psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative.” In the paper, psychoticism is associated with traits such as tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity and authoritarianism.

Since we’re on the topic of authoritarianism, let’s close by looking at some new research, reported by PsyPost, that doesn’t reflect well on the right or left.

New research provides evidence that left-wing authoritarian attitudes exist in the United States. The preliminary findings, published in the scientific journal Political Psychology, suggest liberals could be just as likely to be authoritarians as conservatives. …Conway and his colleagues developed a measure of left-wing authoritarianism, which was adapted from the right-wing authoritarianism scale developed by psychologist Bob Altemeyer. …The new LWA scale, on the other hand, asks questions such as: “It’s always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in science with respect to issues like global warming and evolution than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people’s minds” and “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.” …The researchers found that left-wing authoritarianism was associated with liberal views, dogmatism, and prejudice.

In other words, partisans on both sides are tempted to use the coercive power of government to impose their beliefs.

Which underscores why government shouldn’t have much power in the first place!

The good news is that we still have lots of freedom. At least compared to the rest of the world.

The bad news is that we have less freedom than we used to have.

P.S. You could say we’re becoming less like Liberland and more like Senator Murphy’s dystopia.

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