Which Countries are the Freest on Earth?

[Originally published in the Front Range Voluntaryist, article by Non Facies Furtum]

If you are interested in promoting the message of freedom, or even just interested in geography, you have likely contemplated which countries on Earth are currently the freest. I’m sure that if you’re a voluntaryist, you’ve also said to yourself, “Wow, there really are zero countries on Earth which are as free as I’d like them to be.” Such is life in this age. Though there are many exciting endeavors to create small, independent, and free societies, such as seasteading, or even Liberland, this article will try and determine which countries are the freest today.

It is often said that there are both “civil” liberties and “economic” liberties, and although both of these concepts are both very much intertwined, it is possible to analyze them separately as well. Freedom of speech, essential to challenging the powers that be without violence, is one of these most important liberties that is primarily “civil” in nature. Though many nations at least nominally guarantee freedom of speech in their constitution, those who do not obscure it with myriad legislation are fewer. “Hate speech” is also illegal in many nations, which is often just an excuse to punish those who speak out against the status quo, as it is sufficiently nondescript a term as to justify calling almost anything “hate speech”. Many nations also use the old fashioned way to silence speech, blasphemy laws.

Because of their combinations of explicit protections of freedom of speech, and relative lack of entangling anti-freedom legislation, I will argue that Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Finland have the freest speech in the world. Finland consistently is ranked highly in terms of press freedom, and demonstrations require no permission from police or authorities, though recently it has had problems with anti-islamic “hate speech” laws. New Zealand consistently protects freedom of the press, though they also have problems with “hate speech” laws. Hong Kong also guarantees strongly freedom of speech, though issues may arise through its relation to China.

Nowadays, freedom is also relevant with regards to internet use. In countries where personal freedom is already not highly valued, such as China, Saudi Arabia, or Ethiopia, we unsurprisingly find high levels of internet censorship. Namely this includes heavy monitoring of which sites people visit, and censorship of both access to “harmful” ideas, and the dissemination of such itself. Perhaps unexpectedly, in some countries where traditionally freedom of speech has been highly valued, we also find high levels of censorship. In the USA, as everyone knows, agencies such as the NSA monitor immense amounts of online interactions, and more recently, censorship has come from private companies as well, especially Google. In the UK, the very real problem of online terrorist organization is being used to try and justify “international agreements” to further regulate the internet.

Because of their relative lack of pervasive monitoring of internet activity and lack of NGOs cracking down on “harmful” ideas, I will argue that Norway, Japan, and Iceland have the freest internet access. Iceland has a strong tradition of freedom of speech, and only has potential threats to this freedom coming from their membership in the European Economic Area. Japan also has a free internet tradition, with the exception of censorship of pornography. Norway has a tradition similar to Iceland’s, blocking some file-sharing websites and sites known to carry child-pornography.

Now, let us discuss economic freedom. As economic decisions underly nearly every sort of civil or political decision, economic liberty is a necessary but not wholly sufficient component of a free society.

If we consult the Economic Freedom Index produced by the Fraser Institute, we can get an idea of which countries we ought to be considering for “most free”. As they put it, economic freedom consists of “personal choice rather than collective choice, voluntary exchange coordinated by markets rather than allocation via the political process, freedom to enter and compete in markets, protection of persons and their property from aggression by others.”

Ranked highly here, we have Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the UAE. All of these nations happen to be relatively small nations, and are very highly developed. Hong Kong and Singapore were essentially experiments in freedom in the Asian continent, and coupled with vast human capital and surrounding economic drudgery, they became miracle stories for economic freedom. New Zealand, with its Common Law tradition, has always been a land that values freedom. Although taxation is not particularly low, deregulation in many sectors in the past decades has led to a business-friendly environment. Switzerland, having a very intelligent populace, has a similar story to New Zealand, although with a Reformed Protestant tradition of freedom and individualism rather than a Common Law tradition.

Of course, one of the most egregious ways in which states violently intervene in the lives of nearly everyone on Earth is through taxation. Taxes are destructive, provide funding for the evils states commit on a daily basis, and in many countries, the rates of taxation are amazingly burdensome. A country with low tax rates (relative to its standard of living) is an attractive place for anyone, especially those of us particularly concerned with freedom, and supporting those who also value liberty.

Of nations and territories for which data is readily available, several small island nations such as the Bahamas, and the territories of the Cayman Islands and Anguilla have a maximum personal tax rate of 0%. In fact, Cayman Islands and Anguilla implement only a few small taxes such as a property transfer tax, and import duties of various sorts. The UAE has only income taxes forced upon foreign banks and oil companies, though they plan to implement a VAT from 2018. Several other nations, such as Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the British territories of British Virgin Islands and Sark have also no personal or income taxes, though they often have other taxes, albeit light compared with most nations.

Other nations with personal and corporate tax rates of 10% or lower include Bosnia, Guatemala, Andorra, Paraguay, and Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, there is a strong trend that tax rates in a nation increase steadily as quality of life and average incomes increase. This is to be expected of course, as a state viciously expands itself at every opportunity it finds, but it is somewhat off-putting to see even the otherwise extremely economically free nations of Hong Kong and Macau have maximum personal tax rates as high as 15% and 12% respectively. Certainly, these tax rates are a far sight more palatable than even the minimum tax rates in Denmark, Sweden, and Canada (29.68%, 31%, and 19% respectively), but a 15% income tax means that one has to work nearly 56 days just in order to pay off the state.

As it stands, the nations least burdened by taxation in the world are the British territories of Anguilla, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and the nations of Bahrain and Kuwait. A lack of data on current “value-added” taxes in the UAE, and their plans to implement one in the near future somewhat dilute its otherwise impressive performance in regards to taxation.

One more measure that might be useful in gaining some insight into which countries are the freest on the world today is looking at incarceration rates. Even in a free society, some evildoers would likely be imprisoned, (though the lack of laws punishing victimless crimes, and other more efficient and productive punishments for many crimes would make that number very low), but today in the world a staggeringly high and truly wasteful amount of people are imprisoned, often for wholly unjust reasons, such as extensive drug laws. In the USA, fully 693 out of every 100,000 Americans are imprisoned. Are these people murderers, rapists, and thieves? No, almost half of federal prisoners are guilty of drug crimes. Nations which have low incarceration rates, and are also not corrupt like poor, undeveloped nations, are generally more free in regards to foolish legal systems such as that which plagues the USA. The three nations with and HDI over .900 and with the lowest incarceration rates are Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Japan. These nations are inhabited by high quality people, and incarceration rates reflect that.

In general, in the world today, it is difficult to find a place without an extensive welfare system, soul crushing taxation, and a myriad of laws and regulations which bar people from their personal freedoms and impede societal and economic growth. The world is freer than it has been in the past, by a substantial amount, however. Millions of people are no longer murdered by communists every year, though some of these horrible regimes still exist. Slavery is nonexistent in large parts of the world, and IQ’s and wealth are rising, which will likely lead to even greater freedom. As of 2017, I will argue that the world’s freest nations are New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and the British territories of the Cayman Islands, and Anguilla.

These societies are not only free, the folks who inhabit them are intelligent, and have built healthy, excellent societies. Things can improve in all of these locations, and must worldwide, but take heart that there are places in this day and age which can serve as testaments to the value that even a small degree of freedom brings. Keep spreading the word of liberty, and keep up hope.