User:Cretog8/Scratchpad6

Recent note C RETOG 8(t/c) 17:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC): Check on interpretation of Altman's results re: this diff, and in general.

Reducing this to just notes since the economic freedom article is in flux.

For "rule of law" section: Private property rights: mention... Government assignment of property rights can also be a limit on economic freedom. The clearest case of this is inintellectual property?

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In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek argued that "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends." Hayek criticized social democratic policies as starting the slippery slope to totalitarianism.

Economists such as Gordon Tullock have argued that Hayek's analysis predicted totalitarian governments in much of Europe in the late 20th century. While praising the classical liberal notion of economic freedom, Tullock used as a counter-example to "the Hayek-Friedman argument" Sweden, in which the government at that time controlled 63 percent of GNP. Tullock says, "The basic problem with The Road to Serfdom was that it offered predictions which turned out to be false. The steady advance of government in places such as Sweden has not led to any loss of non-economic freedoms." Tullock still praises the classical liberal notion of economic freedom, saying, "Arguments for political freedom are strong, as are the arguments for economic freedom. We needn’t make one set of arguments depend on the other."

Others say Hayek's argument was weaker, that (according to Robert Skidelsky), "Hayek at least safeguarded himself from such retrospective refutation." Skidelsky argues that Hayek's argument was contingent, and that, "By the 1970s there was some evidence of the slippery slope…and then there was Thatcher. Hayek's warning played a critical part in her determination to 'roll back the state.'"

Related articles
List of countries by economic freedom Indices of economic freedom

EF OR
No_original_research/noticeboard C RETOG 8(t/c) 22:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Labor rights
Labor rights include, and are protected by, the freedom to organize labor unions and engage in collective bargaining.

John L. Lewis argued that collective bargaining was an outgrowth of economic freedom in the form of private property and freedom of contract.

Mancur Olson writes that collective bargaining rights may be in conflict with economic freedom, but believes it is a necessary trade-off.

Labor leaders such as John L. Lewis and A. Philip Randolph argued that other rights could be unimportant to a worker without satisfactory economic prospects, and that unions, as democratic organizations of workers, were the best institution to protect those prospects. At times, collective bargaining rights and freedom of contract can be in conflict.

Poverty and inequality
Amartya Sen sees poverty and economic inequality as barriers to freedom.

According to Friedrich Hayek, equality before the law is incompatible with any activity of the government aiming to achieve the material equality of different people. He asserts that a state's attempt to place people in the same (or similar) material position leads to an unequal treatment of individuals and to a compulsory redistribution of income.

Freedom from government interference and freedom from poverty can coexist.

(Freedom from want)