Soundings, March 2002

Lands of little liberty. Each year, Freedom House conducts a survey of global liberty, although it is admittedly limited to only two aspects of freedom: political rights (democracy) and civil liberties. In evaluating a country's level of democracy, Freedom House uses an eight-point checklist that includes such criteria as free and fair elections, real power for representatives, a significant opposition, the right to organize new parties, and so forth. For civil liberties, Freedom House uses a fourteen-point checklist, including freedom of speech and press, freedom of assembly, equality before the law, an impartial judiciary, and a strong civil society that is independent of government.

In each category, Freedom House then gives the country one of seven ratings, from "most free" (1) to "least free" (7). It considers a country "free" if it falls between 1 and 2.5; "partly free" if it is between 3.0 and 5.5; and "not free" if its rank is between 5.5 and 7.0. (Countries whose rank is 5.5 may receive either a "partly free" or "not free" designation.) Lastly, Freedom House averages a country's two scores to come up with an overall designation for the country.

This year, Navigator thought it would be instructive to look at the ratings for the fourteen countries of the Middle East and the forty-seven countries that have Muslim majorities. In terms of percentages, 7 percent of the Middle Eastern countries are "free," 21 percent are "partly free," and 72 percent are "not free." But that way of presenting the matter disguises more than it reveals. In fact, there is exactly one "free" country in the Middle East, the completely anomalous state of Israel. Moreover, of the three "partly free" countries (Turkey, Jordan, and Kuwait), the first is not Arabic. The ten "not free" countries (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates) are, unfortunately, typical of the region.

The plight of liberty in the Islamic world is, if anything, grimmer still. Only one Muslim country gets a designation of "free," and it barely makes the cut, with a ranking of 2.5. Moreover, this standout is the West African nation of Mali, hardly a leader in the Islamic world. Eighteen Muslim countries are rated "partly free," and twenty-eight are considered "not free." In terms of percentages, then, 2 percent of Islamic countries are "free," 38 percent "partly free," and 60 percent "not free." By contrast, the non-Muslim world-—a category that includes such hell-holes as Cuba, North Korea, and Burma, not to mention China, Vietnam, and Laos-—has eighty-five "free" countries, which amounts to 58 percent of all non-Muslim states. Forty countries in the non-Muslim sphere (28 percent) are "partly free" and twenty (14 percent) are "not free."

A poll of 151 professors and administrators in social science and liberal arts faculties at Ivy League universities turned up drearily predictable results: More than 80 percent voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election, while 9 percent voted for George Bush. Asked their party affiliation, 57 percent said they were Democrats and 3 percent said they were Republicans. Forty percent of the professors supported slavery reparations for black Americans. They strongly opposed a national missile defense system (74 percent to 14 percent) and school vouchers (67 percent to 26 percent). The poll was commissioned by David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and was conducted by Luntz Research Companies. The margin of error was reported to be plus or minus 8 percent.

The Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, reports that the three economically freest countries in the world are, in order, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand. Tied for fourth place are Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United States. The freest Latin American state is Chile, ranked ninth overall. The freest Middle Eastern state is Bahrain, ranked fifteenth.

Reporting on figures released on January 10 by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, columnist Bruce Bartlett writes that the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 36.2 percent of all federal income taxes paid in 1999. This was approximately twice the 18.7 percent that they paid in 1975. Since the top 1 percent of all taxpayers reported just 19.5 percent of adjusted gross income, their share of income taxes exceeded their share of income by 17 percent.

Bartlett also points out that the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 96 percent of all income taxes in 1999, meaning that the bottom 50 percent paid only 4 percent.

The Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib wrote of the Enron case: "The real scandal usually lies not in what's illegal, but in what's legal." Yes, that is surely the real moral of the Enron mess: Too many actions are still legal in this country. But no doubt Washington has the remedy.