Analyzing the Economic Freedom Map

BadMouseProductions has made a video explaining why the economic freedom map from the Heritage foundation is a bad argument.

This disagreement is based on a difference in worldview. Fundamentally socialists believe people are effectively equal. Where those using the economic freedom argument correctly see that there are major differences in quality between people, expressed in the Pareto principle. I'll look into that later, for now just a response to the video.

1:31 "For starters the map shows that countries with economic freedom tend to have less poverty. Not that economic freedom equals less devastation".
Yes, correlation doesn't imply causation. That's why libertarians have written entire books explaining why respecting property rights is always better is always better.

1:39 "This is after all just one variable, unfortunately for us the world does not work on an on/off switch with regards to economic systems."
It's amazing to me that he has the balls to make this argument while looking at a map with all levels and aspects of economic freedom mapped in extreme detail. Of course there's also personal freedom both are indicators of how much power a government has.

1:45 "Serbia and Uganda are literally 0.3 points away from each other. Yet one is considered 'moderately free' whilst the other 'mostly unfree'"
This index is extremely detailed and gradual. There's no suggestion that the group label is more important than the actual judgement on aspects of freedom. Of course you have cutoff points when you group all countries in 5 groups.

2:18 "There's a very pernicious and problematic line of thought that permeates our culture. We'll call it linear thinking. When we see a good example of something and a bad equivalent it's very easy for us to assume we can just apply the good to the bad and everything will be dandy."
No that's not it, there are also temporal considerations here. They're not mapped in this graph, but most people know very well that poverty increased massively in countries like China and Russia, to the point of starvation, due to lack of economic freedom. And that when people's have been allowed more economic freedom, they've been able to escape poverty. That's what this map reminds people of.

2:37 "Because the truth of the matter is that many of these countries don't even have the ability to become economically free-er."
No, their governments could easily reduce their power and influence. The problem is they love their power. It's not that the people involved have too low IQ's or lack of industrialization. Even in under-developed Somalia things improved for the citizens when their government collapsed.

The cake analogy simply doesn't apply. We consistently see that life gets better when people have more economic freedom and worse as people have less economic freedom. People where doing great in countries like Cuba and Venezuela before socialists took over, now they flee in makeshift boats. Hong Kong was a barren rock and became a thriving metropolis due to one of the highest levels of freedom in the world. Chile was suffering under a tyranny from a military leader who kept the existing socialist policies going. He took over to prevent a communist takeover, when the communists where talking about a million people dying in the revolution. So when people complain about Pinochet killing a couple of thousands of people, yes because he kept those socialist policies going. After Milton Friedman convinced him to allow Chileans freedom, things got much better in every way.

3:28 "Our economy works in a similar way, poorer nations are used to keep richer nations rich"
This is utter nonsense and entirely based on the worldview of equality from which people conclude that the successful stole their success from the unsuccessful.

3:47 "There's only what follows from the rulebook capitalism has established"
I don't agree with the common definition of capitalism, but even with that definition the same principle applies here. With freedom companies have to serve their customers to make money. To the extent that government has power, companies can use government to reduce competition, allowing exploitation.

4:08 "The two horsemen of the capitalist apocalypse, the IMF and the world bank, love to shove loans LEDC's."
So now you are talking about government institutions, have nothing to do with capitalism. I agree developing countries have been given massive loans. That's because socialists grabbed their opportunity when these countries became independent to influence them and convince them to implement socialist policies.

4:49 "But when we see it in practice the results are a massively retrenched public sector and total destruction of key services needed to help the citizens of these lands" it goes on to claim that everything is terrible without government holding your hand.
Of course no actual examples. No citizen needs a ruler to hold their hand, not in Europe, not in Somalia, it's never benefited society anywhere. Based on the pictures you seem to be talking about Africa. Based on stories my view on this period in history is that African countries got massive loans to fund socialist programs which destroyed those countries. They weakened government power when they finally started paying back those loans and things have been going better. But I haven't been able to find any long term stats on quality of life in Africa. So if you have those stats, please share them.

6:50 "So there's a fault of logic at bay here, it assumes that these nations are economically restricted. Not detained because they didn't get the historical head start and thus succumbed to exploitation and imperialism by the ones who did".
No explanation of where the "head start" came from. Even though we can easily see that the west got the industrial revolution from economic freedom. It's not that the west was given extra resources by god. The whole time that the west was developing, people in other countries where living their lives as well. Why didn't they develop the same economic success? Libertarian-ism has a clear explanation for this: they weren't economically free. Their freedom remained restricted by their religions and rulers.
On the issue of imperialism it pretends that imperialism was invented by European countries. Because western countries are currently more successful. The assumption is that when some are successful and others failures in life, the successful must have stolen their success from those who failed. This is utter nonsense and many countries/people's have a long history of imperialism. I'll name two examples; Islam and the Mongol hordes of Genghis khan. At one point Muslims conqured 2/3 of once Christian ruled lands. They had twice as much people as slaves than Europeans. From Europe, Africa and the middle east. Muslims made almost all of their slaves into slavery themselves, while Europeans bought almost all of their slaves from the locals or they where from indentured servitude. Non-muslims living in Islamic countries had to pay crushing extra taxes or be murdered. What did Muslims do with all of this stolen wealth? For regions ruled by Islamic imperialism, western imperialism was a huge improvement. The Mongol empire was the biggest in human history. Regions which either bought them off or where pillaged. What did they do with all of this wealth?

7:05 "Are we going to say that countries like Switzerland or America are so great because of economic freedom or because of geographical placement?"
Considering that these countries have totally different geographical placements, I don't see any relation between geographical placement and economic success.

7:13 "Are we to say that countries like Afghanistan and half of Africa are in a hell hole right now because of economic restrictions or because of interference from other nations"
While I don't condone the mass murder in Afghanistan, it was a hell hole before the Russians invaded. Also, many countries have dealt with foreign meddling. Germany and Japan where totally destroyed by bombings, yet they recovered very quickly. Germany got the least US aid and was bombed the least of European countries and recovered the quickest. Not accidentally they also had the most economic freedom. The south of Africa was much better off before they became independent. Are you saying the foreign influence increased when they became independent?

7:28 "Economic freedom is only possible through exploitation"
Whom was exploited by Hong Kong?

7:31 "Real, existing capitalism is not as simple as some petty commodities trade"
I agree, capitalism and economic freedom are not the same. Capitalism is investing in productivity, it happens more as people have more economic freedom.

7:37 "We got the head start. We where able to charge in first and place our bets", with the background text "WHY EUROPE AND NOT CHINA?"
Obviously economic freedom explains this. As the Chinese people lost their economic freedom in the 50's, their lives where destroyed, they where murdered by their government or starved to death. When they got fake economic freedom in the 70's, they where able to escape poverty. China is the best example of how great economic freedom works for everyone. And yes, there's still a lot of misery in China. Officially the state still owns everything and still meddles with everything. Economic freedom works proportionally.

7:55 "This map ignores economic history ... America had protectionism"
Sadly yes, protectionism does damage economic freedom. But on the whole, the US had a lot more economic freedom than other countries. For example, during that time they didn't have an income tax. That's why there's an index to include all of those factors.

8:54 "BECAUSE ALL ECONOMIES REQUIRE NURTURE"
Then why didn't the communist economies work? They had lots of nurture from their governments. Everything was provided by the government, health care, education. During their economic growth governments like in the US didn't meddle with health care or education. That's when they produced the capital that they're still running on now. Modern western education has nothing to do with gaining valuable knowledge. And even knowledge isn't good enough, you need wisdom.

9:57 "China could never have become the economic powerhouse it is today, had it not been for rapid and monumental centrally planned method that it drew itself from"
It's precisely that central planning that caused millions of Chinese to starve to death. Have some compassion for those people! It's when the Chinese got freedom that things got better.

You claim The Heritage Foundation is biased and wrong, yet you cannot prove anything they say wrong.

12:47 "I understand people's want to find defenses for capitalism, after all it's all that we've been thought"
Amazing, western education is dominated by socialists and communists are even more common than those who favor free markets. The question "what will government do to solve this?" permutates public discourse. Only on in the US and alternative media do we some times see someone advocated for free markets.