The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal recently released their Index of Economic Freedom for 2010. In their own words:
'Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please, with that freedom both protected by the state and unconstrained by the state. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself.'
There is a lot of data there, and undoubtedly people will make of it what they will. Moreover, these indices are fairly subjective, based upon the criteria selected for the creation of the index. Nevertheless, these indices can be good measures of what certain groups think of certain things.
In other words, if you care about what the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation cares about, then this index tells you a lot. zdgs