How Free is Your Country?

Small clues can determine how free a country is

 

We talk a lot about people being free these days.   Many people have tried to define freedom in different ways ... but I’ll try to propose a few simple questions to determine is a country is free.

 

Freedom is not just about elections and democracy.   China is more free than some countries that have a democracy.   Singapore, which really is more of a benevolent dictatorship rather than a democracy, is quite free in many ways.

 

Here are a few questions to consider when determining the freedom of a country:

 

1. Can you leave your country at any time and for any reason?  (and can you free emigrate?)

 

2. When you leave the country, can you take your money with you?

 

3. Can you access any site on the Internet?

 

4. How many industries in your country are run by an effective monopoly?   The more industries controlled by a monopoly, the less free the country is.

 

 

(When you look at this metric, a country like Cuba is far less free than Iran.   Cuba basically scores a zero on all these questions where Iran does better).