Freedom and Failure

New Hampshire really does live free. Texas and Colorado still retain the wide-open freedoms of the old west.

Steve Malanga reports in City Journal on the results of a freedom survey conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University. New York came in dead last, and Malanga's piece is an interesting study of this failure.

A new study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Freedom in the 50 States, is the most comprehensive effort to date to rank the states on how their public policies influence “individual freedom in the economic, social and personal spheres.” It includes dozens of variables, from social and personal freedoms (such as parents’ right to educate their own children) to regulatory freedom (such as the degree of occupational licensing requirements) to fiscal liberty (as measured, for instance, by states’ debt burdens, which represent a constraint on future generations).

Top 10 (Most Free) States - #1 to #10:
New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia, North Dakota

Bottom 10 (Least Free) States #41 to #50:
Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York

Data like this is good for poking a finger in the eye of liberalism, but that's not the main point. Studies like this show that conservatism works when it abandons its paternalism, and rampant liberalism is never the path to success.

Merctus.org - Freedom Study
CJ - Malanga
CJ - Gelinas