Freedom's just another word for having a whole lot to gain

The world is a more free place today than a year ago, at least as gauged by the economic indicators used by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal in their annual appraisal of the state of capitalism.
And that's good news for the world because generally -- there are exceptions -- the more free a nation's economy is, the more free that nation's people are.
That's because there's a strong correlation -- again, there are exceptions -- between a nation having constitutionally protected freedoms, especially property rights, and having a free economy.
And its good news, too, because the more free a nation's economy, the higher the per capita income and the higher the standard of living. The latest data available from the World Bank show that per capita income for mostly unfree or repressed economies averaged only about $3,400 in 2000. The figure nearly triples to $12,569 for mostly free economies and doubles again, to $26,855, for free economies.
Richest and poorest
The gap from highest to lowest is far more dramatic: $56,372 for Luxembourg, which is the world's third most free economy, to $140 for Burma, which is ranked 148th. The United States, in case you were wondering, is ranked sixth for freedom and has a per capita income of $31,996, the eighth highest.
The study ranks 165 nations -- five others are not ranked because they are in turmoil -- using 50 different indicators that can be broken down into 10 categories: Trade policy, fiscal burden of government, government intervention in the economy, monetary policy, capital flows and foreign investment, banking and finance, wages and prices, property rights, regulation and black market influence.
The top 10 of the freedom scale, in descending order, with some being tied, are: Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia, the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The bottom 10 are: Turkmenistan, Burma, Uzbekistan, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Libya, Laos, Zimbabwe, Cuba and North Korea. Unrated were: Angola, Burundi, Congo, Iraq and Sudan.
The whole report could -- and does -- fill a book, and its 438 pages make for interesting reading. It's all available on the Heritage Foundation's Web site, www.heritage.org.