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Visualizing the $94 Trillion World Economy in One Chart

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Graphics/Design:

Sabrina fortin, harrison schell.

Check out the latest 2023 update of the world economy in one chart.

View the expanded version of this infographic to see all countries.

The $94 Trillion World Economy in One Chart

Just four countries—the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany—make up over half of the world’s economic output by gross domestic product (GDP) in nominal terms. In fact, the GDP of the U.S. alone is greater than the combined GDP of 170 countries .

How do the different economies of the world compare? In this visualization we look at GDP by country in 2021, using data and estimates from the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ).

An Overview of GDP

GDP serves as a broad indicator for a country’s economic output. It measures the total market value of final goods and services produced in a country in a specific timeframe, such as a quarter or year. In addition, GDP also takes into consideration the output of services provided by the government, such as money spent on defense , healthcare, or education.

Generally speaking, when GDP is increasing in a country, it is a sign of greater economic activity that benefits workers and businesses (while the reverse is true for a decline).

The World Economy: Top 50 Countries

Who are the biggest contributors to the global economy? Here is the ranking of the 50 largest countries by GDP in 2021:

*2020 GDP (latest available) used where IMF estimates for 2021 were unavailable.

At $22.9 trillion , the U.S. GDP accounts for roughly 25% of the global economy, a share that has actually changed significantly over the last 60 years . The finance, insurance, and real estate ($4.7 trillion) industries add the most to the country’s economy, followed by professional and business services ($2.7 trillion) and government ($2.6 trillion).

China’s economy is second in nominal terms, hovering at near $17 trillion in GDP. It remains the largest manufacturer worldwide based on output with extensive production of steel, electronics, and robotics, among others.

The largest economy in Europe is Germany, which exports roughly 20% of the world’s motor vehicles. In 2019, overall trade equaled nearly 90% of the country’s GDP.

The World Economy: 50 Smallest Countries

On the other end of the spectrum are the world’s smallest economies by GDP, primarily developing and island nations.

With a GDP of $70 million , Tuvalu is the smallest economy in the world. Situated between Hawaii and Australia, the largest industry of this volcanic archipelago relies on territorial fishing rights.

In addition, the country earns significant revenue from its “.tv” web domain. Between 2011 and 2019, it earned $5 million annually from companies—including Amazon-owned Twitch to license the Twitch.tv domain name—equivalent to roughly 7% of the country’s GDP.

*2019 GDP (latest available) used where IMF estimates for 2021 were unavailable.

Like Tuvalu, many of the world’s smallest economies are in Oceania, including Nauru, Palau, and Kiribati. Additionally, several countries above rely on the tourism industry for over one-third of their employment.

The Fastest Growing Economies in the World in 2021

With 123% projected GDP growth, Libya’s economy is estimated to have the sharpest rise.

Oil is propelling its growth , with 1.2 million barrels being pumped in the country daily. Along with this, exports and a depressed currency are among the primary factors behind its recovery.

Ireland’s economy, with a projected 13% real GDP growth, is being supported by the largest multinational corporations in the world. Facebook, TikTok, Google, Apple, and Pfizer all have their European headquarters in the country, which has a 12.5% corporate tax rate—or about half the global average. But these rates are set to change soon, as Ireland joined the OECD 15% minimum corporate tax rate agreement which was finalized in October 2021.

Macao’s economy bounced back after COVID-19 restrictions began to lift, but more storm clouds are on the horizon for the Chinese district. The CCP’s anti-corruption campaign and recent arrests could signal a more strained relationship between Mainland China and the world’s largest gambling hub.

Looking Ahead at the World’s GDP

The global GDP figure of $94 trillion may seem massive to us today, but such a total might seem much more modest in the future.

In 1970, the world economy was only about $3 trillion in GDP—or 30 times smaller than it is today. Over the next thirty years, the global economy is expected to more or less double again. By 2050, global GDP could total close to $180 trillion.

Correction: In earlier versions of this graphic, countries such as Vietnam and Pakistan were inadvertently not included in the visualization. They have now been added. In cases where the IMF has no data for 2021 (specifically Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Lebanon), the latest available data is used.

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Illustrating Equality VS Equity

ATTENTION FRIENDS! Can you use the equality vs equity illustration in your book/video/presentation/etc?

Yes! You do not need written permission to reproduce the work. Read below for information on the  license  under which the illustrations are released.

IISC has long believed that this image, illustrating the difference between equality and equity, is worth a thousand words. As a gift to the world of equity practitioners, IISC engaged artist Angus Maguire  to draw a new version of an old favorite (since we could only find pixelated versions of the original). Please feel free to download the high-resolution image and use in your presentations.

Download (.zip package containing JPGs, PDF, PNG, and AI)

Would you like to use this image somewhere.

This image is free to use with attribution: “Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire.” For online use please provide links: interactioninstitute.org and madewithangus.com.

We love hearing stories about how the image is being used so please get in touch with us and let us know how you used it. We especially enjoy hearing about how this image helps to start conversations about equity and equality. We’re on social media and email ([email protected] and [email protected]).

Updates since this article was first published:

20 May 2016: We were notified via Twitter that the original creator of the original graphic wrote a piece cataloging the evolution of the meme. Here’s the piece . It even encompasses our version and a few riffs on it, including our followup collaboration with the Center for Story-Based Strategy & Angus , #the4thbox .

In the News

Cynthia Silva Parker was quoted by Sustainable Cities Network in an article: Infusing Equity into the Urban Planning Process .

What is equity? In the simplest terms, it means fairness, which is not necessarily the same thing as equality.

It’s not about everybody getting the same thing,” Parker said. “It’s about everybody getting what they need in order to improve the quality of their situation.”

One difficulty in including equity goals in planning is that the people who need them most can be hard to involve. Traditionally, planners involve stakeholders by inviting them to public meetings and asking them to read and comment on plans. This can be a time-consuming process, and people who work multiple jobs and lack transportation and child-care options are unlikely to show up at the library for a three-hour meeting.

And even if they’re able to offer their time, they may not be willing.

“Trust is the No. 1 thing, ‘Why are you asking, and will it make a difference,’ ” Parker said. “When we got started, there was a bit of interesting community jargon: ‘Planning Fatigue.’ People were tired of being asked to come to meetings, asked to share their vision, asked to draw another picture of a beautiful community, and then nothing is going to happen, or it’s going to take 15 years and they’re going to say, ‘We don’t even remember that we were part of that.'”

Public Training Schedule

We hope you will consider enrolling in one of our public trainings this year.

Over the past 25 years, we have developed a lens through which we facilitate social change and we bring it to every engagement. IISC invites groups and leaders to shift power dynamics, focus on building networks, and magnify love as a force for social change. Using this collaborative change lens, we see leaders overcome challenges and have astounding impact.

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129 Comments

Great picture and great message!

Would it be possible to create an image with differently shaded bodies to help reflect the ethnic and racial impacts of equity?

I think if they were all green, the intended message (equity) would be most prominent.

No, we get it.

Very simple to understand what is justice and equality and how equality does not meet justice some times

I’ve also seen this drawing re-visioned to include girls. We like baseball too. 🙂

Ma Waste — I’m interested in the drawing that included girls. Could you provide where I may find it?

Thanks, Lucretia D. Coleman, BSBA, HC Certified Lifestyle Enthusiast

Wow that illustration / image… Whoa!

To funny how you can not just take a message for Something positive. … you have to bring up that there is not girl in the image or different body types. do you want white people in it, but what about Asians, no wait, no this is a baseball game, what about football, more people watch football. STFU already

“STFU” is rude. Please don’t be. The point is simple and straightforward and yes, one can get bogged down in the practically infinite combinations. But to stop people from commenting and anti-message. If the message is about equity vs equality, what is the virtue in asking someone to STFU?

You’re an idiot.

Your my neighbor and I️ love you

Love conquers hate every time. Many thanks for that reminder.

How come they’re outside the fence instead of in the stands? Why don’t they buy tickets like everyone else?

I’d like to see this picture of people looking over the fence at something like a beautiful pasture or animals in a zoo. Any kind of people would do. It is not about being excluded from being a spectator in a seat. It is about being able to experience something like any other person would.

There is a similar illustration showing three options instead of two: Equality (one crate each), Equity (the right amount of crates for each person so everyone sees over the fence), and Liberation (no fence at all). Liberation is much harder to achieve than Equity because it removes the problem altogether and that sometimes isn’t even possible.

I think the Equality, Equity, and Liberation is a much more powerful image and should be promoted on this website rather than the older version.

it’s important to discuss, not only the artist’s reasoning, but also the implications of taking a popular internet photo and re-creating it with People of Color – – especially since the artist is white. while i understand how “inclusion” gets sticky, it’s irresponsible not to at least reference the original photo (it has white people) and talk about why – in a re-creation to make it not “pixelated” – did the artist choose to make the people non-white. i’m pretty sure making it “not pixelated” doesn’t change the people in the original photo to People of Color. because, after all, if you’re going to keep the photo like the original, but change the race, then why not also include people experiencing disability, gay people, Muslims….and any others who oftentimes do not have access….why change only the race? and, what message is it sending that the artist felt that race was the only thing that needed to be changed? i’m not dissing the photo or the message – but unintended messages and consequences are important things to consider. and, for an organization that boasts talking about social change, then these are the exact conversations you need to be fostering when you post this photo – that’s being a responsible social change activist.

Dear Professor, I think the artist accomplished just what he needed to when reading your comment….in order to achieve Equity over Equality we must change our Perception.. you choose to see and evaluate all that was wrong in this picture as well as all that could have been perceived; as an injustice or misrepresentation of its original form. Instead of focusing on the new message…..thank you

that’s too funny – your response, i mean. you clearly don’t understand social justice – or this illustration at all (sans the race issue – just the message). because social justice is about questioning and dismantling in order to seek equity, and a good part of it is about questioning why some have access and others don’t . . . . why we depict something with brown skin versus black skin, poverty versus upper class, gay versus straight – which is what i did; it’s not about pointing out what is wrong . . . . which is NOT what i did. equity vs equality is NOT at all about changing perception….if it were that easy, we’d already be doing it. this illustration is much deeper than that. put your rebel flag away and read up on social justice and equity.

You appear to be making an assumption that the reader cannot generalize equity, from a limited set of various conditions. Why?

About race: it doesn’t exist. Only in your imagination. Racism is VERY real, but not race. It’s been scientifically proven that if you took the genomes of a white person and a black person, there would be as much difference between them genetically as there would be between two white people. Also, skin color depends on the amount of melanin in the skin, and that amount is affected by three or four genes AND the environment in which you live.

Just a few observations on the illustration:

1. While it does illustrate equity, it only works if the participants are truly of different heights. I do not subscribe to this notion as it relates to the subject at hand.

2. The illustration depicts the “taller” individual willingly giving of what he has, which is the nature of enlightened people. It does not illustrate a representative of a police state forcibly taking the property of one person to distribute it to another, which would be the goal of a liberal government.

I would wish that the Republicans Governor of the State of Michigan had been more “enlightened” as you say. Where is the equity in cutting taxes for the rich, while failing to deliver clean water to the people of Flint? If ever there was a case that the billionaires of the country are NOT interested in equity, it is the situation in Flint. They would rather line their own pockets with tax cuts than provide the equity of clean water for all!

Why don’t the people of Flint take care of their own water?

If you’re mad about taxes, go yell at Amazon. They don’t pay ANY taxes at all.

Your analysis is dutifully noted. So when are we going to give the Native American “Indians” back their land?

It might be too late because there are so many cities in the country that they wouldn’t get all of it–in fact, it’s possible they would be deprived of quite a lot–unless force people out of their homes and tear down some cities.

And then the purple baby jumped for joy when she could see the game better. Now that the baby could see better she demanded to the blue shirt dad how come he didn’t get them a seat in the stands. That wasn’t fair. Why should they stand on the box when there are other kids her age are sittin, eating hot dogs at the seats. The dad, who just minutes back thought he made it equitable, now understood that with whiny kids, it is un winnable. And in the exact moment, the purple baby fell down from the unstable box and bumped her head. The baby ended up fine but the doctors referred the social services who considered this as willful neglect on the part of dad. The mom, who already had beef with the dad divorced him. But she didn’t have enough to provide for the baby and the alimony wasn’t covering much as well. So, the baby ended moving from home to home at the mercy of strangers and at the whims of the social service providers.

Beautifully narrated, to bad the purple baby didn’t understand that this was her first look at systematic oppression. That questioning the injustice of her disposition would open pandoras’ box. Little did she know that being purple was a threat. So they cut her off from her identity by separating her from her parents.This was necessary in order to deter her thirst for equality. They condition her to believe that this was the only way because now she was a potential threat to their plans. So they stragically cut her off from her identity using the system as their tool. They threw her into poverty and try to strip her of her self-worth. But see the purple baby was special, the melanin in her made her unique. She was design to persevere, to overcome, and to lead. And even though the purple baby was setup to fail, the purple baby left them all scrabbling wondering where they went wrong….when she became the First Lady of The United States of America….the end

you need serious mental evaluation

It’s certainly a bit… exaggerated.

True equity or even equality would mean they could join the others in the seats in the stadium.

Unless of course all the seats were sold out…

Yeah, but a picture of that just wouldnt work, right? The picture works because it doesnt show a perfect world.

Having a child with peanut allergies and seeing the illustration, I saw my child watching a baseball game from outside the stadium because there are not any accommodations inside which would allow her to watch without being expose to peanuts so I didn’t see the equity or equality.

Have you ever heard of SunButter? It’s like peanut butter, but it’s made from sunflower seeds. They also make Reese’s-style chocolate treats with the SunButter inside. They’re really tasty.

The issue is if you use the metaphor of a starting line in a race, and all of the runners line up on the same stRting line, you may have equality in the sense if the same chance to run the race, but you won’t have equity That is because if you ignore the history of racism and unequal opportunity leading up to the day if the race, then it really isn’t an ‘equal’ chance to run and win because the privileged white runners will be better trained and stronger and more experienced etc adding the extra boxes so the smaller figures can see over the fence is the equivalent of giving the disadvantaged runners a 50 yard lead or an early start. As in education with an admissions preference This is where things fall apart in America though You can give a preference to Betersns or disabled people but if you give any sort of leg up or benefit to black people it’s shouted down as special treatment. The image is meant to show the simply declaring that now we are all equal and each standing on the same box or the same starting line is not enough

*clap clap clap clap clap* THANK you YES

This illustration feels like the way they see affirmative action seeing some as needing to take more resources than others to be equal. A direct result of their own short comings. More accurate is everyone is the same height it is the fence or barrier which is of different height and material. It denies some access despite the same effort and equity deals with the barriers which are created by society not genetics.

I agree completely. This is an excellent suggestion for how to improve the illustration!

Omygosh why does nobody else say this?! Yes yes yes yes YES

Equity should be employed with a view to achieve equality in the end, if that is at all possible. Equity should not attempt to achieve equal outcomes for all by fully compensating individual differences. In other words, equity should not nullify the benefits of competition. Ideally, equitable arrangements should aim to bring everyone to a minimum required level, while keeping some room for further differentiation based on merit-based competition.

A useful illustration if just for the many questions it raises — some of which are captured well in the comments portion of this article.

When did it become fashionable to pit equity against equality? Equity and equality go hand in hand and advocates should work together. The cartoon is divisive and misinformed. The cartoonist should stick to cartooning and leave equity and equality to others. The cartoon builds a straw man concept of equality as formal mathematical identity n=n to refute an argument that nobody is making. Formal mathematical identity does not mean not moral equality or equal justice. Aristotle recognized that equality means treating similar things similarly and different things differently. The children are different heights and need different boxes for equality in the justice sense. End of argument.

Using equity to trash equality denigrates the rich, nuanced conception of equality embedded in equal justice, the Equal Protection Clause, equal rights, and other basic principles that go beyond formal mathematical identity n=n.

Equal justice treats different things differently. For example, if government draws distinctions based on fundamental rights or race, color, or national, the distinctions generally must be narrowly crafted to serve a compelling state interest. This is strict scrutiny. Distinctions based on gender or sex must be substantially related to further an important government interest – that is intermediate scrutiny. Economic distinctions generally need to be rationally related to a legitimate government interest – that is rational basis scrutiny.

Equity is generally undefined and provides no basis for evaluating distinctions based on race, gender, age, or income, for example. Equity may be a useful complement to equality arguments in some contexts.

There is uniform agreement on moral equality or equal justice among thoughtful observers. Fundamental equality means that persons are alike in important relevant and specified respects alone, and not that they are all generally the same or can be treated in the same way. Moral equality can be understood as prescribing treatment of persons as equals, i.e., with equal concern and respect, and not the often implausible principle of treating persons with mathematical equally. This fundamental idea of equal respect for all persons and of the equal worth or equal dignity of all human beings is accepted as a minimal standard by all leading schools of modern Western political and moral culture. Any political theory abandoning this notion of equality will not be found plausible today. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

A case of over-analysis. See the obvious meaning and go with it. Avoid confirmational bias in semantics.

Classical humanism and the idea behind it that most impacted our faith: ad fontes. In order to learn how to think – rather than what to think.

What the heck are you talking about?!?!?!?!?! Everyone getting different things to suit their needs is EQUITY, NOT EQUALITY, and THEY DO NOT GO HAND IN HAND!!!!!!!!!! It is ESSENTIAL to put a little more research into these types of things before making a comment that long. It is so incredibly biased and ungrounded that I considered commenting tips on how to make an argument that people will agree with.

Wow. I clearly don’t have the depth of many of the commenters.

I didn’t see people of color , gender, or other categorizations. I saw three people with the same challenge (seeing an event) and a reminder that if we all looked to our left and to our right (directionally, not politically) and share what we have extra of what we have (time, money, knowledge, love), we can help others with their challenges.

Is the directive “if a man has two coats…” so conceptually distant from “from each according to their ability”?

The answer is obvious in this picture. The real world challenge is that to meet everyone’s expectations for a equilibrium point, we need more than two coats or three boxes. The expectations of modern societies exceed the resources available and we have to temper expectations (across the spectrum).

Actually that is on the same level of thought as most, if not all, of the other people who have (and/or will) comment. Give yourself a pat on the back.

I have always believed this and argued with my female friends trying to prove it. If we look at reality, we will find that there is not a single country in the whole world that gives fathers a paternity leave equal in days to the maternity leave when a new baby is born. This is Justice vs. Equality. It’s not fair or just, on the other hand, to oblige women to be soldiers when 18 for 2 years like men … etc.

Actually, equity would have someone with a hole dug in the ground to take away from their hard work. This picture makes equity look nice and all, but when people aren’t motivated to succeed, then innovation takes a heavy hit. I love what a lot of European countries do with their education and healthcare, but they are now struggling with too many people on welfare, and not enough innovators, because taxes take too much away from those who put in effort and give too much to those who sit around doing nothing.

So, in essence, the picture needs holes dug in the ground to show all the people who are having stuff taken from them to build the mounds for others to stand on. In other words: those who work hard and get nothing from it just to lift up those who are lazy and not willing to put in the effort needed to succeed.

100% agreed.

All three are equally STEALING from the baseball team. Their combined equity to rip someone off will cause the poor guy selling tickets and the single mother working in the concession stand to eventually lose their jobs.

But what if the three people couldn’t afford tickets or they were all sold out?! Then they didn’t have a choice, except not watching. (But this is a hypothetical situation in which we don’t consider the possibility that the even does not occur at all for the people being focused on.) Anyway. Yeah. They might not have been able to get tickets for one reason or another.

What a horrible, ghastly and authoritarian image!

Each person had to build their own box and buy the parts for it, but one was taken away by the man on the left via threat of violence or imprisonment!

You get my point. This is a terrible and limited analogy, which is reliant on the idea that boxes are cheap and easy to find. Also, that he is a father, who has a duty of care to his kids.

It’s utterly meaningless when attempting to compare peers and when the boxes are metaphors for ability and work ethic.

Very, very silly nonsense.

It’s literally just a hypothetical situation. It is symbolicly representing a real-world challenge, but it has a specific purpose and meaning, and I think that if you don’t care about the purpose/meaning, you should buzz off before you offend someone else. Sorry if that seemed rude; I’m a very passionate person and a justice-fighter. Literally.

Come on man. Alex has a point. The image assumes that everyone could easily see the game, but it’s not an either/or situation. In reality it is a spectrum (such as if we talk about income). All of us view justice myopically, so none of us can be the arbiter of what’s just. Better to let everyone guide their own lives.

I love this! I have translated it to Hebrew and used it at my school. I hope that it is ok to share with others (ugh, after the fact, I already shared it with Jewish educators around the globe) I’d love to send you the image that I’ve used with the Hebrew. where can I upload a link? Thank you! The artwork is beautiful and the image is powerful. Even the first/second graders got the message of fairness.

Hi Hadar, we LOVE that you took the liberty to do this (and it’s SO good to hear that young children understood the meaning)!

The original cartoon is not ours and we adapted it with the full-intention of providing the design files so that others could adapt it, too! Please email our Communications team ([email protected]) and someone will be in touch with you about getting a link to the graphic (and hopefully even the graphic itself) posted here.

Thank YOU for taking this gift and running with it!

How can I cite this lovely picture in APA format in a Concept Analysis paper?

I’ve only cited anything for an essay so I don’t know but maybe someone will come along and answer this for the next person who has this same question.

How about the little guy, accepting that he’s shorter and needs an extra box (hey I can relate – I’m shorter than 5′), goes and gets another box (maybe having to get more education to learn how to acquire boxes, or work a second job) rather than standing and sulking waiting for the tall guy to give him his box (which he worked hard to acquire). Maybe the short guy can even eventually rise above the other two and brag about his view. Life is not fair and there are many things we can’t control. But we need to take responsibility for the things we can. It sucks but the fact is some people will have to work twice as hard to get to the same place as others but they nevertheless get there. There are countless examples.

Yes. Great point. Except… the point, I think, was to convey that some people don’t have the means to get what they need and that includes the time and energy to get a second job, in which case the proud, priveleged, and horribly oblivious white people come in, refusing to give up their box (money/food/etc.) that they don’t even need.

It is all well. The picture serves the purpose in the context in which it is situated – which is to differentiate between equality and equity inspite of the natural barriers to real equity in a world inhabited by equally selfish creatures.

Why in the freaking world does no one else say this. May you live a long and happy life.

Very soon this web site will be famous amid all blogging and site-building visitors, due to it’s fastidious posts

You actually make it appear really easy together with your presentation but I find this topic to be actually something that I feel I would by no means understand. It sort of feels too complicated and extremely vast for me. I am having a look ahead in your next post, I’ll try to get the cling of it!

Ok, if anyone else feels this way, here’s the gist: Everyone has one life goal in common, right? To thrive, financially, emotionally, and physically. But, not everyone can get the things they need to meet this goal. People who DO have what they need–privileged white people–do not understand this, and think that giving everyone the same thing *equality* is what will make the goal easier for everyone to reach. But because some people need more resources than others, they have specific needs. If these specific needs aren’t met, they will survive, but they may not thrive. Meeting everyone’s individual needs *equity* will make the goal easier to reach, because there aren’t as many obstacles as there were. Note, and this is essential to understand, that I did not say ALL obstacles. There will still be some. There is a third option, but it is much harder to do. Removing the initial problem altogether *liberation* would mean that nobody has specific needs to be met. HOWEVER, there’s the catch of the problem is eliminated completely. In an ideal world, poverty wouldn’t exist in the first place. But this is a far less than perfect world, and so some barriers can’t even be scratched. Lot’s of information, here’s the summary: equality gives everyone the same thing, but equity gives everyone what they as individuals (or in other terms, families, ethnic groups, etc) need. Liberation eliminates problems altogether, and is therefore much harder to reach. Equity is better because not everyone needs the same thing, and so equality is not the right option.

You can’t be serious. No, everyone does NOT have one life goal in common. Not even a little bit. But, even if they did, no two journeys would be the same. Which is why “equity” is a problem. Giving Frank (who had no desire to work and earn anything and was perfectly content to waste what he was given) resource after resource in order to have an equal quality of life as Stan (who was given zero resources because he was ambitious and acquired what he needed on his own) is absolutely disgusting. In fact, seeing Stan succeed will not motivate Frank to work harder, he gets it handed to him. Stan will see that he doesn’t have to work hard because why should he? Stan can just be lazy and get things handed to him for free, too. The biggest problem with that, though, is that nothing is free. Someone is always paying for it. It’s theft. Everyone loses.

thiet ke ho ca koi No matter if some one searches for his essential thing, thus he/she wants to be available that in detail, thus that thing is maintained over here.

It would have been better with the third image – liberation – with no fence at all blocking the viewers, or even chairs for everyone, or even folks that are seated in the stadium. this image doesn’t go far enough.

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No time to read through all the responses so perhaps this has been put forward already; but I came across this similar meme and thought it addressed some of the issues even more thoroughly, that is to say, by addressing the inequity involved the props might not be needed at all — and all of the individuals (though in this depiction are “white” or “pink skinned”) have the barriers out of the way and all can enjoy the ballgame in safety and relative comfort.

I think the general reality is that each of the children “could have been depicted differently” so as to create the visual of inequity regardless of “race/color/disability”…

I rather like it however… it seems the bandaids are no longer required. Let’s be realistic-the fence is protection – and we all still need that (regardless of who we are). We all have one or more dis-ability; physical, emotional, financial, long-term, short-term… and in many cases, people need that hand up.

It is in how we deal with the truest of issues — working with the actual diagnosis, rather than pretending there is no issue, no dis-ability (yes, I’m putting the “dash”in there deliberately) that determines the outcome.

We can say the same about the issues our government is facing. Too many bandaids, not enough cleaning up the actual wound so it can heal and the country be whole again. We have these huge infections, and it’s about time we shoveled the tonics, scraped the dirt off and got some real health back into our system.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155073997389832&set=a.10150712123059832.492768.765439831&type=3&theater

Yesssss Although I think what you’re talking about with the fence gone has already been addressed and added as a third option–liberation–in a similar illustration.

An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a coworker who was conducting a little research on this. And he actually bought me breakfast because I discovered it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending some time to discuss this subject here on your internet site.

Hi, thank you for allowing the images to be used freely. I am using the image in my PhD regarding equity, justice and change in environmental impact assessment.

Found this on MSN and I’m happy I did. Well written article.

All people in the cartoon are the same age… all 3 have been admitted into a Physics undergrad program…. The tall person has an IQ = 125 The middle size person has an IQ = 100 The short person has an IQ = 75 The tall person gets 1 hour to take exams… The medium person gets 1 + 1 = 2 hours to take exams The short person gets 1 + 2 = 3 hours to take exams How is this ‘equitable’ in any way? By letting ‘anyone’ into the program the tall man’s naturally endowed characteristics are devalued—-the natural characteristics of the other two are ‘inflated’. Nobody asked to be short or tall. The best human intentions cannot ‘outdesign the way things are naturally’.

This depiction is individualism. Re-conceptualise to a society which is cooperative and collective. Create examinations based on collectivity and cooperation, allow teams to answer the examination. Isn’t that how life is post-education? Change the structures to achieve equity.

We match college students’ private studying styles and must tutors who coach them to excessive efficiency and academic success in all school topics, at all levels https://math-problem-solver.com/ .

And to make math attention-grabbing – solely a lovely individual like you are able to do it.

I’m glad that you left space for people to comment. I’ve always had concerns about the diagram as presented. In Canada, Equality Rights are entrenched in Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All of the legal writers and thinkers and all of our courts and tribunals understand Equality to mean both ‘formal’ and ‘substantive’ equality.in 1989, in its very first case on S15, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the Equality Rights section imparts ‘substantive’ equality.

The notion of ‘equality’ as presented in the diagram, depicts an example of ‘formal’ equality or treating like things alike. It was understood in 1989 that this treating like things alike can, as is depicted in the diagram, result in the most perverse injustices. It was further understood that the sort of solution presented in the second panel constitutes ‘substantive equality’ NOTE not equity.

By saying that ‘equality’ is bad and that it is to be contrasted to ‘equity’ the diagram fails to take into account ‘substantive’ equality. In attempting to devise solutions that would result in providing an even playing field for all, none of the legal thinkers or writer and no tribunal member or judge has ever elucidated an idea of ‘equity’ as being opposed to ‘equality’.

To summarize, the equation presented is the diagram has no basis in law and has no basis in the thinking or writing of people who work in equality rights. It’s just patently wrong.

I am aware of this pictures popularity to illustrate the concept of equity and equality. But, I am not a fan. My first reaction was, “why are these people behind the fence?” Why are they not sitting in the stands with the rest of the people.

To better express equity and equality, I like the image of a person wearing prescription eyeglasses better. When a single person requires eyeglasses to improve their quality of vision, we don’t issue everyone else on the planet a pair of glasses as well- they do not need them. The prescribed glasses doesn’t give the person wearing them an edge over non-eyeglass-wearing folks. It only makes them equal to them.

But, …the kids are still outside the park, on the other side of the fence! Boxes or no boxes they are not included, – …not even in the cheap seats?

Yes, as an educator I do realize the purpose of the rendition, to create an understanding of equality and equity, but they are still outside the fence. Is it a start? …maybe. But if the bar is set to “outside” then outside is all we will achieve.

David Fonseca Assistant Superintendent of Schools Burke County Public Schools Morganton, NC

If people stop over thinking and take this photo exactly as it is then they’d appreciate it a lot more. My 7 year old understood the basic principle- shouldn’t be too hard for adults.

I used it as an example for my daughter as to why she’s treated differently and held to a higher standard than my ASD son. Her version of “fair” is on the left at her age- it was helpful to explain why I have different expectations. She finally understood and knows that I’m not playing favorites and love her just as much as her sibling. Thank you!

The picture says to me that even there in reality there is no such thing as Equality, society should do there level best to see to it that the playing field is leveled so everyone can have an opportunity to rise as high as they wish in life. Thanks!

What if the tall man worked hard for his box? Is it “fair” to say his work shouldn’t be compensated equally with the work of others? Let’s make a comparison. We require less work for short one to have enough boxes in this instance. We can’t do that in every instance though. Eventually, accustomed to a lower level of work for more boxes, he will feel like everything is stacked against him when he doesn’t measure up elsewhere. Compare this to affirmative action. Fewer blacks are graduating college now than before affirmative action programs. Those admitted with lower standards don’t go on to be successful in college. Admissions isn’t just a sorting mechanism. It gauges someone’s readiness to handle the workload of a university. It doesn’t help to give someone boxes when it only stunts their growth. (Excuse the limitations of the drawing in this real-world comparison)

Real life is not like watching a baseball game but reaching for food. Imagine that there is a tall tree full of fruits and there were three hungry people like the ones in the picture. It is only that all crates have to be put under the tallest person that they could reach the fruits. Otherwise they would all starve to death. What would you do? This is the reality today: to make enough progress for the whole human race, we need to put enough resources under small number of “tallest” people. Think about it, who benefited the most from the mass production of automobiles. Was it the rich, who already owned several horse carriages, or the general public, who had to walk by foot?

The fallacy of this picture is the lack of distinction between equal opportunities and equal assistance. Also, regarding a cause-and-effect timeline, Equality is on the front-end, and Equity is on the resultant-end.

The equal-height boxes would be Equal Assistance [one size fits all] but not Equal Opportunities [i.e., Equality]. (No one is “more equal” than another!) The unequal-height boxes would be Equal Opportunities [Equality on the front-end, so all 3 CAN see], that could bring about Equal Outcomes [i.e., Equity, so that all 3 WILL see]. Otherwise, if the shortest one insists on closing his eyes, there would not be Equal Outcomes [i.e., Equity, since only 1 or 2 are seeing]. (Equity may opt to force.)

Of late college quotas do not give equal opportunities based on merit only but based on ethnic and gender characteristics. However, colleges have always sought and still seek to give equal opportunity along with unequal assistance, be it financial help with tuition or extra tutoring or physical/mental disability arrangements. Colleges give out different-height boxes with equal opportunity.

This conversation highlights some of the ambiguities and different understandings around the ideas of equality and equity. The different sized boxes are, as Larry N. Baker said, about ‘equal assistance’. They lead to an ‘equality of outcome’ in the picture, but only because all the individuals shown are putting in the same effort – ie they are all standing up (rather than sitting). Were one of the people choosing to just sit on their box, the person would be unable to see – but this would not be inequitable, just an unequal otcome. As an economist, my understanding of equity is that it involves a value judgment about the desert or merit of different people. Thus, (under certain commonly-held value judgments), someone who doesn’t “try” as hard as another would not deserve the same rewards (in this case, the same view). Indeed, giving such people an equal outcome (for example, giving them a higher box that allows them to sit and see) would, in that case, be INequitable!

Dear All, The picture doesn’t show equity as it doesn’t include girls/women. In its current version it is similar to this one where the religious/ethnic diversity of India is intended to be shown but it only shows men: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d5/6d/af/d56dafa4ea1ef5e810c0d9397cd3ebac.jpg

Regards, Elly

Why is there a fence? Why are they on the outside?

Here’s another variation. A bit gruesome, but the underlying point — that in the name of equity sometimes the result is everyone suffers (or perhaps put another way, “If everyone can’t enjoy or benefit from X, then nobody will get it.).

(Link removed for graphic depictions of violence)

Wondering how does this concept applies to the athletes on the field considering genetics is a massive factor.

Everyone should have an equal amount of time on the field regardless of ability or effort

Appreciate your perspective. Looking forward to more posts!

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Mapped: The State Of Economic Freedom In 2023

By U Cast Studios June 6, 2023

The concept of economic freedom serves as a vital framework for evaluating the extent to which individuals and businesses have the freedom to make economic decisions. In countries with low economic freedom, governments exert coercion and constraints on liberties, restricting choice for individuals and businesses, which can ultimately hinder prosperity.

This article was written by Avery Koop and originally published by Visual Capitalist .

The map above uses the annual  Index of Economic Freedom  from the Heritage Foundation to showcase the level of economic freedom in every country worldwide on a scale of 0-100, looking at factors like property rights, tax burdens, labor freedom, and so on.

The ranking categorizing scores of 80+ as free economies, 70-79.9 as mostly free, 60-69.9 as moderately free, 50-59.9 as mostly unfree, and 0-49.9 as repressed.

Measuring Economic Freedom

This ranking uses four broad categories with three key indicators each, both qualitative and quantitative, to measure economic freedom.

• Rule of law:  property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity
• Size of government:  tax burdens, fiscal health, government spending
• Regulatory efficiency:  labor freedom, monetary freedom, business freedom
• Open markets:  financial freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom

The 12 indicators are weighted equally and scored from 0-100. The overall score is then determined from the average of the 12 indicators.

Here are the top ten countries’ score:

Only four countries in the world have a score of 80 or above,  Ireland, Singapore, Switzerland,  and  Taiwan,  categorizing them as completely free economically.

Let’s now look at things from a more regional perspective.

From a regional perspective, Europe ranks the strongest in economic freedom.

Despite being a powerhouse within Europe,  Germany  ranks 10th in the continent, with a score of 73.7. One of the categories Germany scored the weakest in was government spending (28.3/100). Over the last three years, government spending has averaged  49%  of GDP.

Ireland  ranks third globally, scoring particularly high in categories like property rights and judicial effectiveness. The country also has no minimum capital requirement—which is typically a banking regulation and corporate law issue determining how many assets an organization must hold—making it attractive for businesses to set up shop on the Emerald Isle.

Currently, Africa is the continent with the least economic freedom in the world, however, it is also the region with the highest potential for economic growth. A booming population, and thus, labor force, are promising for future innovation. In fact, it’s anticipated that Africa will see an  increase  of 2.5 billion people by the end of the century.

The lowest scoring country in Africa is  Sudan , a country under further strain thanks to rife  civil conflict . Historically, economic development has been constrained by rampant corruption and a lack of institutional capacity.

Conversely,  Botswana  registered the highest score on continental Africa (64.9), ranking higher than countries like France and Italy.

The Americas

In the Americas, the  United States  ranks 3rd regionally—25th overall—with a score of 70.6. The report attributes the categorization of U.S. as only “mostly free” to issues like inflation, increasing government debt, and unchecked deficit spending. Public debt currently sits at a figure equivalent to more than  128%  of GDP.

In South America,  Chile  comes out on top, ranking above many other economic powerhouses like the U.S., the UK, and Japan. However, the 2021 election of a new Constitutional Assembly could risk the current economic state, as it favors a much more socialist approach to the economy.

East Asia and Oceania

China’s  score is among the lowest in East Asia & Oceania, ranking 154th in the world categorizing it as a repressed economy. The ruling Chinese Communist Party routinely exercises direct control over economic activity. China’s protectionist stance towards foreign investment and a plethora of trade tariffs imposed by other nations also factor in here.

In  India , where public debt is equivalent to about 84% of GDP, fiscal health is the worst-scoring category. Additionally, much of the economy remains quite informal; a large share of people work in jobs without tax slips, recorded income, or formal contracts protecting them, which challenges labor freedoms.

The Middle East and Central Asia

It may come as no surprise that the  United Arab Emirates  has the highest score in the Middle East. The UAE has implemented various measures and initiatives, such as tax exemptions, duty-free zones, streamlined business registration processes, and flexible regulatory frameworks to encourage entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment. As well, the top individual and corporate tax rates in the country are 0%.

Türkiye’s  lowest scoring category relates to judiciary effectiveness and the rule of law. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has already been in power for two decades, recently won the country’s election, again cementing his authority over Turkish politics. This makes it unlikely that Türkiye’s economic freedom score will recover in the short to medium term.

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Economics for the Masses: The Visual Display of Economic Knowledge in the United States (1921-1945)

• Loïc Charles , Yann Giraud
• Published 22 April 2010
• Economics, History
• Philosophy & Methodology of Economics eJournal

15 Citations

Textbooks as data for the study of the history of economics: lowly beast or fruitful vineyard, michael polanyi’s neutral keynesianism and the first economics film, 1933 to 1945, hes presidential address: the coase theorem lessons for the study of the history of economic thought, between ethics and science: economic and political arguments against child labor in the progressive period, what a difference a decade makes: the planning debates and the fate of the unity of science movement, how textbooks create knowledge and meaning: the case of the coase theorem in intermediate microeconomics, field, undercover, and participant observers in us labor economics: 1900-1930, when measurements matter: poverty, wealth, and the politics of inequality in the united states, pilgrimages to the museums of the new age: appropriating european industrial museums in new york city (1927–1937), federal reserve economic data: a history, 103 references, the changing place of visual representation in economics: paul samuelson between principle and strategy, 1941–1955, late victorian visual reasoning and alfred marshall's economic science, social science in the crucible: the american debate over objectivity and purpose, 1918–1941, statistical representations from popular texts for the ordinary citizen, 1889¿1914, the invisible hand of planning: capitalism, social science, and the state in the 1920s, ethics and the excluded middle: karl menger and social science in interwar vienna, understanding institutional economics: 1918–1929, the struggle over the soul of economics: institutionalist and neoclassical economists in america between the wars, the "vanity of the philosopher": from equality to hierarchy in post-classical economics, machine-age ideology: social engineering and american liberalism, 1911–1939 by john m. jordan (review), related papers.

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Economics for the Masses: The Visual Display of Economic Knowledge in the United States (1921-1945)

42 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2010

Loic Charles

Yann giraud.

THEMA - Université de Cergy-Pontoise

Date Written: April 22, 2010

The rise of visual representation in economics textbooks after WWII is one of the main features of contemporary economics. In this paper, we argue that this development has been preceded by a no less significant rise of visual representation in the larger literature devoted to social and scientific issues, including economic textbooks for non-economists as well as newspapers and magazines. During the interwar era, editors, propagandists and social scientists altogether encouraged the use of visual language as the main vehicle to spread information and opinions about the economy to a larger audience. This process, which most notably helped shape the understanding of economic issues during the years of the Great Depression, has also changed the place of visualization in US society, seen not only as a tool of illustration but as a powerful engine of conviction and education. We explore different yet related aspects of this development by studying the use of visual language in economics textbooks intended for non-specialists, in periodicals such as the Survey, a monthly magazine intended for an audience of social workers, the americanization of Otto Neurath's pictorial statistics and finally the use of those visual representations by various state departments and administrations under Roosevelt's legislature (including the much-commented Historical Section of the Farm Security Administration). We show how visualizations that have been created in opposition to mainstream economics have lost most of their theoretical content when used widely for policy purposes while being simultaneously integrated into the larger American culture. It is our claim that those issues, which are familiar to those involved in cultural and visual studies, are also of crucial importance to apprehend the later developments of modern economics.

Keywords: Visualization, economics, American Economy, Otto Neurath, Rexford Tugwell, Roosevelt, Roy Stryker, Photographs, Pictorial Statistics

JEL Classification: B20, A14

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

INED ( email )

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Thema - université de cergy-pontoise ( email ).

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Of Coase and Carbon: The Coase Theorem in Environmental Economics, 1960-1979

By Steven G. Medema

Textbooks as Data for the Study of the History of Economics: Lowly Beast or Fruitful Vineyard?

The Index of Economic Freedom

F or much of human history, most individuals have lacked economic freedom and opportunity, condemning them to poverty and deprivation.

Today, we live in the most prosperous time in human history. Poverty, sicknesses, and ignorance are receding throughout the world, due in large part to the advance of economic freedom. In 2024, the principles of economic freedom that have fueled this monumental progress are once again measured in the Index of Economic Freedom , an annual guide published by The Heritage Foundation, Washington's No. 1 think tank.

The Index covers 12 freedoms—from property rights to financial freedom—in 184 countries.

The 2024 Index —the 30th edition—includes:

• Updated economic freedom scores and macroeconomic data for 184 economies.
• Easy-to-read country profiles that highlight why economic freedom matters.
• Online tools like customized comparison charts and interactive data visualizations.

Promoting Economic Opportunity, Individual Empowerment, and Prosperity

The Index of Economic Freedom has measured the impact of liberty and free markets around the globe, and the 2024 Index confirms the formidable positive relationship between economic freedom and progress.

For thirty years the Index has delivered thoughtful analysis in a clear, friendly, and straight-forward format. With new resources for users and a website tailored for research and education, the Index of Economic Freedom is poised to help readers track three decades of the advancement in economic freedom, prosperity, and opportunity and to promote these ideas in their homes, schools, and communities.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is economic freedom.

Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please. In economically free societies, governments allow labor, capital, and goods to move freely, and refrain from coercion or constraint of liberty beyond the extent necessary to protect and maintain liberty itself.

How do you measure economic freedom?

We measure economic freedom based on 12 quantitative and qualitative factors, grouped into four broad categories, or pillars, of economic freedom:

• Rule of Law (property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness);
• Government Size (government spending, tax burden, fiscal health);
• Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom); and
• Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom).

Each of the twelve economic freedoms within these categories is graded on a scale of 0 to 100. A country’s overall score is derived by averaging these twelve economic freedoms, with equal weight being given to each. More information on the grading and methodology can be found in the appendix.

Which components of economic freedom are most important?

The Index of Economic Freedom considers every component equally important in achieving the positive benefits of economic freedom. Each freedom is weighted equally in determining country scores. Countries considering economic reforms may find significant opportunities for improving economic performance in those factors in which they score the lowest. These factors may indicate significant binding constraints on economic growth and prosperity.

What are the benefits of economic freedom?

Economic freedom brings greater prosperity. The Index of Economic Freedom documents the positive relationship between economic freedom and a variety of positive social and economic goals. The ideals of economic freedom are strongly associated with healthier societies, cleaner environments, greater per capita wealth, human development, democracy, and poverty elimination. For further information, see especially:

• The 12 Economic Freedoms: Unleashing Choice and Opportunity
• Economic Freedom: The Key to Human Flourishing

What is your period of study?

Scores for the 2024 Index of Economic Freedom are generally based on data for the period covering the second half of 2022 through the first half of 2023. To the extent possible, the information considered for each variable was current as of June 30, 2023. It should be noted, however, that some component scores are based on historical information. For example, the monetary freedom component uses a three-year weighted average rate of inflation from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022.

How can I use the Index of Economic Freedom ?

The Index of Economic Freedom is a helpful tool for a variety of audiences, including academics, policymakers, journalists, students, teachers, and those in business and finance. The Index is an excellent objective tool for analyzing 184 economies throughout the world and each country profile is a resource for in-depth analysis of a country’s political and economic developments. The 12 economic freedoms and accompanying historical data also provide a comprehensive set of principles and facts for those who wish to understand the fundamentals of economic growth and prosperity.

Contributors

I t is only through the contributions of a great many people that a publication like the Index of Economic Freedom is possible. Among them, a few special contributors have that extra talent, work ethic, and willingness to go the extra mile that make the Index a remarkable and uniquely special undertaking.

Heritage Experts

Anthony B. Kim is a Research Fellow in Economic Freedom, Editor of the Index of Economic Freedom , and Manager of Global Engagement in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

Kevin Roberts, PhD, is President of The Heritage Foundation.

Design and Development

John Fleming is Manager of Data Graphics Services for Policy Publications at The Heritage Foundation.

Christina Hamm is a Web Designer for Policy Publications at The Heritage Foundation.

Jay Simon is the Manager of Web Development and Print Production for Policy Publications at The Heritage Foundation.

Acknowledgments

T he Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom is the product of collaboration with people and organizations around the world. We wish to express our gratitude both to the myriad individuals serving with various international organizations, research institutions, government agencies, embassies, and other organizations and to the various Heritage Foundation experts who provided valuable guidance and assistance throughout the year.

Production of the Index would not be possible without many other colleagues at Heritage. Senior Editor William T. Poole continues to bear the primary responsibility for perfecting the language employed in the Index ; Manager of Data Graphics Services John Fleming and Data Graphics Designer Luke Karnick created the wonderful charts and graphs that appear throughout the book; Director of Policy Publications Therese Pennefather was, as always, instrumental in keeping the production on schedule; Manager of Web Development and Print Production Jay Simon was responsible for design and layout of the Index , and Graphic Designer Kathryn Guillen designed the cover.

The transformation of the Index into electronic formats is made possible by the efforts of Jay Simon, John Fleming, Web Designer Christina Hamm, and Director of Marketing Elizabeth Fender.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Executive Vice President Derrick Morgan, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy Vice President Victoria Coates, and Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom Director Nile Gardiner have been enthusiastic supporters and sources of encouragement in producing this flagship Heritage Foundation product. We are also grateful for the continuing engagement of Heritage Founder Edwin J. Feulner and Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow James Carafano in helping us to spread the message of economic freedom to the world.

We would also like to express our appreciation to the many people who, year after year, have relied on the Index as a trusted source of data on the singular virtues of economic freedom in maximizing human well-being. The support and encouragement provided by users of the Index in countries around the world remain a major source of inspiration for our ongoing work.

Anthony B. Kim February 2024

Methodology

T he Index of Economic Freedom focuses on four key aspects of the economic and entrepreneurial environment:

• Rule of law,
• Government size,
• Regulatory efficiency, and
• Market openness.

In assessing conditions in these four categories, the Index measures 12 specific components of economic freedom, each of which is graded on a scale from 0 to 100. Scores on these 12 components of economic freedom are calculated from a number of sub-variables and then equally weighted and averaged to produce an overall economic freedom score for each economy.

The following sections explain the formulas and methodology used to compute the scores for each of the 12 components of economic freedom.

Rule of Law

Property rights.

The property rights component assesses the extent to which a country’s legal framework allows individuals to acquire, hold, and utilize private property and the extent to which these rights are secured by applicable laws that the government enforces effectively. Relying on a mix of survey data and independent assessments, it provides a quantifiable measure of the degree to which a country’s laws protect private property rights and the extent to which those laws are respected. It also assesses the level of state expropriation of private property. The more effective the legal protection of property is, the higher a country’s score will be, and the greater the chances of government expropriation of property are, the lower a country’s score will be.

The score for this component is derived by averaging scores for three equally weighted sub-factors:

• Risk of expropriation,
• Respect for intellectual property rights, and
• Quality of contract enforcement, property rights, and law enforcement.

Each sub-factor is converted to a scale of 0 to 100 using the following equation:

Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor i ‐ Sub-factor Min ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ) 1

• Sub-factor i : represents the original data for country i.
• Sub-factor Max : represents the upper bounds for the corresponding data set.
• Sub-factor Min : represents the lower bounds for the corresponding data set.
• Sub-factor Score i : represents the computed sub-factor score for country i.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent available versions of the following sources in assessing property rights: Credendo, Country Risk and Insights ; U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Global Innovation Policy Center, International IP Index ; and World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators .

Judicial Effectiveness

Properly functioning legal frameworks are essential for protecting the rights of all citizens against unlawful acts by others, including governments and powerful private parties. Judicial effectiveness requires efficient and fair judicial systems to ensure that laws are fully respected and appropriate legal actions are taken against violations.

The score for the judicial effectiveness component is derived by averaging scores for three equally weighted sub-factors:

• Judicial independence,
• Quality of the judicial process, and
• Perceptions of the quality of public services and the independence of the civil service.

Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor i ‐ Sub-factor Min ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min )

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent available versions of the following sources in assessing judicial effectiveness: Freedom House, Freedom in the World , and World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators .

Government Integrity

Corruption erodes economic freedom by introducing insecurity and coercion into economic relations. Of greatest concern is the systemic corruption of government institutions and decision-making by such practices as bribery, extortion, nepotism, cronyism, patronage, embezzlement, and graft. The lack of government integrity that such practices cause reduces public trust and economic vitality by increasing the costs of economic activity.

• Perceptions of corruption,
• Bribery risk, and
• Control of corruption including “capture” of the state by elites and private interests.

Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor i ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ) 2

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources in assessing government integrity: Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index ; TRACE International, Trace Bribery Risk Matrix® ; and World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators .

Government Size

Tax burden is a composite measure that reflects marginal tax rates on both personal and corporate income and the overall level of taxation (including direct and indirect taxes imposed by all levels of government) as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).

The component score is derived from three equally weighted quantitative sub-factors:

• The top marginal tax rate on individual income,
• The top marginal tax rate on corporate income, and
• The total tax burden as a percentage of GDP.

The equal weighting of these numerical variables allows a country to achieve a score as high as 67 based on two of the sub-factors even if it receives a score of zero on the third.

Tax burden scores are calculated with a quadratic cost function to reflect the diminishing revenue returns from very high rates of taxation. The data for each sub-factor are converted to a 100-point scale using the following equation:

Tax Burden ij = 100 ‐ α (Sub-factor ij ) 2

• Tax Burden ij : represents the tax burden in country i for Sub-factor j.
• Sub-factor ij : represents the value (a percentage expressed on a scale of 0 to 100) in country i for Sub-factor j.
• α is a coefficient set equal to 0.03.

The minimum score for each sub-factor is zero, which is not represented in the printed equation but is used because it means that no single high tax burden will make the other two sub-factors irrelevant.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent available data from the following sources for information on tax rates, in order of priority: KPMG International; Deloitte, Tax Guides and Highlights ; International Monetary Fund, Staff Country Report , “Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix,” and Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation”; PricewaterhouseCoopers, Worldwide Tax Summaries ; countries’ investment agencies; and other government authorities (embassy confirmations and/or the country’s treasury or tax authority).

For information on the tax burden as a percentage of GDP, the primary sources are World Bank, World Development Indicators ; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data; Eurostat, Government Finance Statistics; African Development Bank Group, African Economic Outlook ; International Monetary Fund, Government Finance Statistics (GFS) database, Staff Country Report , “Selected Issues,” and Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation”; Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific ; and United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean .

Government Spending

The government spending component captures the burden imposed by government expenditures, which includes consumption by the state and all transfer payments related to various entitlement programs.

The Index does not identify an optimal level of government spending. The ideal level will vary from country to country, depending on factors that range from culture to geography to level of economic development. At some point, however, government spending becomes an unavoidable burden as growth in the public sector’s size and scope leads inevitably to misallocation of resources and loss of economic efficiency. As volumes of research have shown, excessive government spending that causes chronic budget deficits and the accumulation of public debt is one of the most serious drags on economic dynamism.

The Index methodology treats zero government spending as the benchmark. As a result, underdeveloped countries—especially those with little government capacity—may receive artificially high scores. However, such governments can provide few if any public goods and will probably receive low scores on some of the other components of economic freedom (such as property rights, financial freedom, and investment freedom) that measure aspects of government effectiveness.

Government spending has a major impact on economic freedom, but it is just one of many important components. The scale for scoring government spending is nonlinear, which means that spending that is close to zero is lightly penalized and spending that exceeds 30 percent of GDP leads to much worse scores in a quadratic fashion (for example, twice as much spending yields four times less freedom). Only extraordinarily high levels of government spending (for example, more than 58 percent of GDP) receive a score of zero.

The equation used to compute a country’s government spending score is:

GE i = 100 ‐ α (Expenditures i ) 2

• GE i : represents the government expenditure score in country i.
• Expenditures i : represents the average total government spending at all levels as a percentage of GDP for the most recent three years.
• α is a coefficient to control for variation among scores (set at 0.03).

The minimum component score is zero.

For most countries, the Index uses general government expenditure data for all levels of government, from national to local. In cases where data on general government spending are not available, data on central government expenditures are used.

For several countries—and especially for developing countries—statistics related to government spending as a percentage of GDP are subject to frequent revisions by such data sources as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources for information on government intervention in the economy, in order of priority: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data; Eurostat data; African Development Bank Group, African Economic Outlook ; International Monetary Fund, Staff Country Report , “Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix,” Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation,” and World Economic Outlook database; Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific ; African Development Bank, AfDB Statistics Pocketbook ; official government publications of each country; and United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean .

Fiscal Health

Widening deficits and a growing debt burden, both of which are caused by poor government budget management, lead to the erosion of a country’s overall fiscal health, and deteriorating fiscal health is associated with macroeconomic instability and economic uncertainty.

Debt is an accumulation of budget deficits over time. In theory, debt financing of public spending could contribute to productive investment and ultimately to economic growth. However, mounting public debt driven by persistent budget deficits—and especially by spending that merely boosts government consumption or transfer payments—often undermines overall productivity growth and leads ultimately to economic stagnation rather than growth.

The score for the fiscal health component is based on two sub-factors, which are weighted as follows in calculating the overall component score:

• Average deficits as a percentage of GDP for the most recent three years (80 percent of score) 3 and
• Debt as a percentage of GDP (20 percent of score).

The equation used to compute a country’s fiscal health score is:

Sub-factor Score i = 100 ‐ α (Sub-factor i ) 2

• Sub-factor Score i : represents the deficit or debt score in country i.
• Sub-factor i : represents the factor value as a portion of GDP.
• α is a coefficient to control for variation among scores (set at 2 for deficit and 0.01 for debt).

The minimum sub-factor score is zero.

For most countries, the Index uses general government deficit and debt data for all levels of government, from national to local. In cases where such general government data are not available, data on central government expenditures are used.

For several countries, particularly developing countries, statistics related to budget balance as a percentage of GDP are subject to frequent revisions by such data sources as the IMF.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent available versions of the following sources for information on government intervention in the economy, in order of priority: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, Staff Country Report , “Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix,” and Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation”; Asian Development Bank, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific ; African Development Bank, AfDB Statistics Pocketbook ; and official government publications of each country.

Regulatory Efficiency

Business freedom.

The business freedom component measures the extent to which a country’s regulatory and infrastructure environments constrain the efficient operation of businesses. The quantitative score is derived from an array of factors that affect the ease of starting, operating, and closing a business.

The business freedom score for each country is a number between 0 and 100, with 100 indicating the freest business environment, and is based on four equally weighted sub-factors:

• Access to electricity,
• Business environment risk,
• Regulatory quality, and
• Women’s economic inclusion.

Except for the women’s economic inclusion variable, which is readily available in a scale of 0 to 100, each sub-factor is converted to a scale of 0 to 100 using the following equation:

Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor i ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ) 4

• Sub-factor Max and Sub-factor Min : represent the upper and lower bounds for the corresponding data set.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent available versions of the following sources in determining business freedom scores: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators ; World Bank, World Development Indicators; Credendo, Country Risk and Insights ; and World Bank, Women, Business and the Law .

Labor Freedom

The labor freedom component is a quantitative measure that considers various aspects of the legal and regulatory framework of a country’s labor market, including regulations concerning minimum wages, associational rights, laws inhibiting layoffs, severance requirements, and measurable regulatory restraints on hiring and hours worked, in addition to the labor force participation rate and labor productivity as an indicative measure of employment opportunities in the labor market.

The score for the labor freedom component is based on nine equally weighted sub-factors:

• Minimum wage,
• Associational right,
• Paid annual leave,
• Notice period for redundancy dismissal,
• Severance pay for redundancy dismissal,
• Labor productivity,
• Labor force participation rate,
• Restrictions on overtime work, and
• Redundancy dismissal permitted by law.

In constructing the labor freedom score, the first seven of the nine sub-factors are converted to a scale of 0 to 100 based on the following equation:

Sub-factor Score i = 50 x (Sub-factor average / Sub-factor i )

where country i data are calculated relative to the world average and then multiplied by 50. The seven sub-factor scores are then averaged for each country, yielding a labor freedom score in comparison to scores for other countries.

For the existence of overtime restrictions, 100 is assigned to a country whose value is No, and 0 is assigned to a country whose value is Yes. For the question of redundancy dismissal permitted by law, 100 is assigned to a country whose value is Yes, and 0 is assigned to a country whose value is No.

The simple average of the converted values for the nine sub-factors is computed to obtain the country’s overall labor freedom score.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent data available from the following sources for data on labor freedom: World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators ; World Bank, World Development Indicators ; Freedom House, Freedom in the World ; International Labour Organization, statistics and databases; and World Bank, Employing Workers project.

Monetary Freedom

Monetary freedom combines a measure of inflation with an assessment of various government activities that distort prices. Price stability without microeconomic intervention is the ideal state for the free market.

The score for the monetary freedom component is based on two sub-factors:

• The weighted average rate of inflation for the most recent three years and
• A qualitative judgement about the extent of government manipulation of prices through direct controls or subsidies.

The weighted average rate of inflation for the most recent three years serves as the primary input into an equation that generates the base score for monetary freedom. The extent of price controls is then assessed as a penalty deduction of 0–20 points from the base score. The two equations used to convert rates of inflation into the final monetary freedom score are:

Weighted Avg. Inflation i = θ 1 Inflation it + θ 2 Inflation it‐1 + θ 3 Inflation it‐2

Monetary Freedom i = 100 ‐ α √Weighted Avg. Inflation i ‐ PC penalty i

where θ 1 through θ 3 (thetas 1–3) represent three numbers that sum to 1 and are exponentially smaller in sequence (in this case, values of 0.665, 0.245, and 0.090, respectively); Inflation it is the absolute value of the annual rate of inflation in country i during year t as measured by the Consumer Price Index; α represents a coefficient that stabilizes the variance of scores; and the price control (PC) penalty is an assigned value of 0–20 penalty points based on the extent of price controls.

The convex (square root) functional form was chosen to create separation among countries with low rates of inflation. A concave functional form would essentially treat all hyperinflations as equally bad, whether they were price increases of 100 percent annually or 100,000 percent annually, whereas the square root provides much more gradation. The α coefficient is set to equal 6.333, which converts a 10 percent inflation rate into a monetary freedom score of 80.0 and a 2 percent inflation rate into a score of 91.0.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources for data on monetary policy, in order of priority: International Monetary Fund, International Financial Statistics Online ; International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database and Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation”; various World Bank country reports; various news and magazine articles; and official government publications of each country.

Open Markets

Trade freedom.

Trade freedom is a composite measure of the extent of tariff and nontariff barriers that affect imports and exports of goods and services. The trade freedom score is based on two inputs:

• The trade-weighted average tariff rate and
• A qualitative evaluation of nontariff barriers (NTBs).

Different imports entering a country can be (and often are) subject to different tariff rates. The weighted average tariff uses weights for each tariff based on the share of imports for each good. Weighted average tariffs are a purely quantitative measure and account for the calculation of the base trade freedom score using the following equation:

Trade Freedom i = 100(Tariff max ‐Tariff i )/(Tariff max ‐Tariff min ) ‐ NTB i

where Trade Freedom i represents the trade freedom in country i; Tariff max and Tariff min represent the upper and lower bounds for tariff rates (%); and Tariff i represents the weighted average tariff rate (%) in country i. The minimum tariff is naturally 0 percent, and the upper bound was set at 50 percent.

We determine the extent of NTBs in a country’s trade policy regime using both qualitative and quantitative information. Restrictive rules that hinder trade vary widely, and their overlapping and shifting nature makes their complexity hard to measure. The types of NTBs considered in our scoring include:

• Quantity restrictions: import quotas; export limitations; voluntary export restraints; import‐export embargoes and bans; countertrade; etc.
• Regulatory restrictions: licensing; domestic content and mixing requirements; sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPSs); safety and industrial standards regulations; packaging, labeling, and trademark regulations; advertising and media regulations.
• Customs restrictions: advance deposit requirements; customs valuation procedures; customs classification procedures; customs clearance procedures.
• Direct government intervention: subsidies and other aid; government industrial policies; government-financed research and other technology policies; competition policies; government procurement policies; state trading, government monopolies, and exclusive franchises.
• In addition, where possible, we consider and report the number of nontariff measures in force as calculated by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Gathering tariff statistics to make a consistent cross-country comparison is a challenging task. Unlike data on inflation, for instance, some countries do not report their weighted average tariff rate or simple average tariff rate every year.

To preserve consistency in grading the trade freedom component, the Index uses a country’s most recently reported most favored nation (MFN) 5 trade-weighted average tariff rate from our primary source.

The most comprehensive and consistent information on MFN trade-weighted average tariff rates is published by the WTO. When the MFN trade-weighted average applied tariff rate is not available, the Index uses the country’s simple average of MFN tariff rates; when the country’s simple average MFN tariff rate is not available, the weighted average or the simple average of applied tariff rates is used. In the very few cases for which tariff rates are not available from the WTO or the World Bank, data on international trade taxes or an estimated effective tariff rate are used.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources in determining scores for trade policy, in order of priority: World Trade Organization, World Tariff Profiles ; World Bank, World Development Indicators ; World Trade Organization, Trade Policy Review ; Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers ; U.S. Department of Commerce, Country Commercial Guide ; and official government publications of each country.

Investment Freedom

In an economically free country, there would be no constraints on the flow of investment capital. Individuals and firms would be able to move their resources into and out of specific activities, both internally and across the country’s borders, without restriction. Such an ideal country would receive a score of 100 on the Index ’s investment freedom component.

In practice, however, most countries impose a variety of restrictions on investment. Some have different rules for foreign and domestic investment. Some restrict access to foreign exchange. Some impose restrictions on payments, transfers, and capital transactions. In some, certain industries are closed to foreign investment.

The Index evaluates a variety of regulatory restrictions that typically are imposed on investment. Points, as indicated below, are deducted from the ideal score of 100 for each of the restrictions in a country’s investment regime. It is not necessary for a government to impose all of the listed restrictions at the maximum level to eliminate investment freedom. The scores for the few governments that impose so many restrictions that they total more than 100 points in deductions are set at zero.

Investment Restrictions

National treatment of foreign investment

• No national treatment; investment prescreened 25 points deducted
• Some national treatment and some prescreening 15 points deducted
• Some national treatment or prescreening 5 points deducted

Foreign investment code

• Burdensome bureaucracy and no transparency 20 points deducted
• Inefficient policy implementation and bureaucracy 10 points deducted
• Some investment laws and practices nontransparent or inefficiently implemented 5 points deducted

Restrictions on land ownership

• All real estate purchases restricted 15 points deducted
• No foreign purchases of real estate 10 points deducted
• Some restrictions on purchases of real estate 5 points deducted

Sectoral investment restrictions

• Multiple sectors restricted 20 points deducted
• Few sectors restricted 10 points deducted
• One or two sectors restricted 5 points deducted

Expropriation of investments without fair compensation

• Common with no legal recourse 25 points deducted
• Common with some legal recourse 15 points deducted
• Uncommon but does occur 5 points deducted

Foreign exchange controls

• No access by foreigners or residents 25 points deducted
• Access available but heavily restricted 15 points deducted
• Access available with few restrictions 5 points deducted

Capital controls

• No repatriation of profits; all transactions require government approval 25 points deducted
• Inward and outward capital movements require approval and are subject to some restrictions 15 points deducted
• Most transfers approved with some restrictions 5 points deducted

As many as 20 additional points may be deducted for security problems, a lack of basic investment infrastructure, or other government policies that inject a considerable degree of uncertainty and indirectly burden the investment process and limit investment freedom.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources for data on capital flows and foreign investment, in order of priority: official government publications of each country; U.S. Department of State, Investment Climate Statements ; Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers ; World Bank, Investing Across Borders ; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Services Trade Restrictiveness Index ; and U.S. Department of Commerce, Country Commercial Guide .

Financial Freedom

Financial freedom is both an indicator of banking efficiency and a measure of independence from government control and interference in the financial sector. State ownership of banks and other financial institutions such as insurers and capital markets reduces competition and generally lowers the level of access to credit.

In an ideal banking and financing environment characterized by a minimum level of government interference, independent central bank supervision and regulation of financial institutions are limited to enforcing contractual obligations and preventing fraud; credit is allocated on market terms; the government does not own financial institutions; financial institutions provide various types of financial services to individuals and companies; banks are free to extend credit, accept deposits, and conduct operations in foreign currencies; and foreign financial institutions operate freely and are treated the same as domestic institutions.

To assess the overall level of financial freedom that ensures easy and effective access to financing opportunities for people and businesses in a country’s economy, the Index takes account of five broad areas:

• The extent of government regulation of financial services,
• The degree of state intervention in banks and other financial firms through direct and indirect ownership,
• Government influence on the allocation of credit,
• The extent of financial and capital market development, and
• Openness to foreign competition.

Based on this assessment, an economy receives an overall financial freedom score on a scale of 0 to 100 according to the following criteria:

• 100—No government interference. Government oversight is limited solely to the enforcement of contractual obligations and prevention of fraud.
• 90—Minimal government interference. Regulation of financial institutions is minimal but may extend beyond the enforcement of contractual obligations and prevention of fraud to capitalization or reserve requirements.
• 80—Nominal government interference. Government ownership of financial institutions represents a small share of overall sector assets. Financial institutions face almost no restrictions on their ability to offer financial services.
• 70—Limited government interference. The government influences the allocation of credit, but private allocation of credit is subject to almost no restrictions. Government ownership of financial institutions is sizeable. Foreign financial institutions are subject to few restrictions.
• 60—Moderate government interference. Banking and financial regulations are somewhat burdensome. The government exercises ownership and control of financial institutions with a significant share of overall sector assets. The ability of financial institutions to offer financial services is subject to some restrictions.
• 50—Considerable government interference. The government significantly influences the allocation of credit, and private allocation of credit faces significant barriers. The ability of financial institutions to offer financial services is subject to significant restrictions. Foreign financial institutions are subject to some restrictions.
• 40—Strong government interference. The central bank is subject to government influence, its supervision of financial institutions is heavy-handed, and its ability to enforce contracts and prevent fraud is weak. The government exercises active ownership and control of financial institutions with a large minority share of overall sector assets.
• 30—Extensive government interference. The government influences the allocation of credit extensively. The government owns or controls a majority of financial institutions or is in a dominant position. Financial institutions are heavily restricted, and bank formation faces significant barriers. Foreign financial institutions are subject to significant restrictions.
• 20—Heavy government interference. The central bank is not independent, and its supervision of financial institutions is repressive. Foreign financial institutions are discouraged or highly constrained.
• 10—Near-repressive. The government controls the allocation of credit. Bank formation is restricted. Foreign financial institutions are prohibited.
• 0—Repressive. Supervision and regulation are designed to prevent private financial institutions from functioning. Private financial institutions are nonexistent.

Sources: The Index relies on the most recent versions of the following sources for data on banking and finance, in order of priority: International Monetary Fund, Staff Country Report , “Selected Issues,” and Staff Country Report , “Article IV Consultation”; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Surveys ; official government publications of each country; U.S. Department of Commerce, Country Commercial Guide ; Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers ; U.S. Department of State, Investment Climate Statements ; World Bank, World Development Indicators ; and various news and magazine articles on banking and finance.

General Methodological Parameters

Period of Study. Scores for the 2024 Index of Economic Freedom are generally based on data for the period covering the second half of 2022 through the first half of 2023. To the extent possible, the information considered for each variable was current as of June 30, 2023. It should be noted, however, that some component scores are based on historical information. For example, the monetary freedom component uses a three-year weighted average rate of inflation from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022.

Equal Weight. In the Index of Economic Freedom , the 12 components of economic freedom are weighted equally so that the overall score will not be biased in favor of any one component or policy direction. The 12 economic freedoms obviously interact, but the exact mechanisms of this interaction are not clearly definable: Is a minimum threshold for each one essential? Is it possible for one to maximize if others are minimized? Are they dependent or exclusive, complementary or supplementary?

These questions, while valid, are beyond the scope of our fundamental mission. The Index of Economic Freedom is designed to reflect the economic and entrepreneurial environment in every country studied in as balanced a way as possible, not specifically to explain economic growth or any other dependent variable; that is ably done by researchers elsewhere. The raw data for each component are provided so that others can study, weight, and integrate as they see fit.

Most Recent Available Information. By analyzing economic freedom annually, the Index can include the most recent information as it becomes available country by country. Using a data cutoff date ensures that all countries are treated fairly. As described above, each year’s Index considers all information as of the last day of June of the previous year (in this case, June 30, 2023). Any new legislative changes or policy actions that take effect after that date have no positive or negative impact on scores or rankings. 6

Defining the Country Pages “Quick Facts”

The “Quick Facts” section of each country page is a statistical profile that includes the country’s principal economic and demographic indicators. To facilitate comparisons among countries, the GDP and GDP per capita figures in the “Quick Facts” section are adjusted to reflect purchasing power parity (PPP). Caution should be used in interpreting changes in these figures over time because PPP conversion rates are subject to regular revision by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. To provide accurate estimates of annual and five-year GDP growth rates, these figures have been calculated using constant U.S. dollars for the most recent available years.

Exact definitions and sources for each category of data reported are as follows:

• Population: 2022 data from World Bank, World Development Indicators database midyear estimates, which count all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship. In some cases, other sources include the country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• GDP: Gross domestic product (total production of goods and services) adjusted to reflect PPP. The primary source is International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, October 2023. Other sources include a country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• GDP growth rate: Annual percentage growth rate of real GDP derived from constant currency units. Annual percentage changes are year over year. The primary source is International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, October 2023. Secondary sources include U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2022, and a country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• GDP five-year average annual growth: Average growth rate measured over a specified period of time. The five-year annual growth rate is measured using data from 2018 through 2022 based on real GDP growth rates. The primary source is International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, October 2023. Secondary sources are U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2022, and a country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• GDP per capita: Gross domestic product (adjusted for PPP) divided by total population. The sources for these data are International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, October 2023; U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2023; and a country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• Unemployment rate: A measure of the portion of the workforce that is not employed but is actively seeking work. Data are from International Labour Organization, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023.
• Inflation: Annual percentage change in consumer prices as measured for 2022 (or the most recent available year). The primary source for 2022 data is International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, October 2023. The secondary source is a country’s statistical agency and/or central bank.
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) inward flow: Total annual inward flow of FDI in current 2020 U.S. dollars, reported in millions. FDI flows are defined as investments that acquire a lasting management interest (10 percent or more of voting stock) in a local enterprise by an investor operating in another country. Such investment is the sum of equity capital, reinvestment of earnings, other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in the balance of payments and both short-term and long-term international loans. Data are from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2023: International Tax Reforms and Sustainable Investment.
• Public debt: Gross government debt as a percentage of GDP, which indicates the cumulative total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country’s currency. Public debt is different from external debt, which reflects the foreign currency liabilities of both the private and public sectors and must be financed out of foreign exchange earnings. The primary sources for 2022 data are the International Monetary Fund and the IMF DataMapper.

Commonly Used Abbreviations

• EU: European Union, founded in 1963 and self-described as “a unique economic and political union between 27 European countries.” 7 Its 27 member countries currently include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden. (The United Kingdom completed its withdrawal from the EU on January 31, 2020.)
• IMF: International Monetary Fund, established in 1945 and self-described as “an organization of 190 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.” 8
• WTO: World Trade Organization, founded in 1995 and self-described as “the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.” 9 Specifically, it “is an organization for trade opening,” “is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements,” “is a place for them to settle trade disputes,” “operates a system of trade rules,” and “[e]ssentially…is a place where member governments try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other.” As of the time this edition of the Index was being prepared, the WTO included 164 member economies. 10

[1] The following equation is used where values of sub-factor data are ranked in ascending order: Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor i ‐ Sub-factor Min ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ).

[2] The following equation is used where values of sub-factor data are ranked in ascending order: Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor i ‐ Sub-factor Min ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ).

[3] The maximum sub-factor score of 100 is assigned to balanced budgets or budget surpluses.

[4] The following equation is used where values of sub-factor data are ranked in ascending order: Sub-factor Score i = 100 x (Sub-factor i ‐ Sub-factor Min ) / (Sub-factor Max ‐ Sub-factor Min ).

[5] Known since 1998 as permanent normal trade relations (PNTR).

[6] Because the Index is published several months after the cutoff date for evaluation, more recent events cannot be factored into the scores. As in past editions, however, such events may be noted in the text. The impact of policy changes and macroeconomic statistics available in the second half of 2022 has not affected the rankings for the 2023 Index but almost certainly will affect scores in the next edition.

[7] European Commission, The European Union: What It Is and What It Does (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2022), p. 7, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ac0a88a6-4369-11ea-b81b-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/ (accessed January 4, 2024).

[8] International Monetary Fund, “IMF Country Information,” https://www.imf.org/en/Countries (accessed January 4, 2024). This source also includes a list of the IMF’s 190 member countries.

[9] World Trade Organization, “What Is the WTO?” https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm (accessed January 4, 2024).

[10] For a list of the WTO’s 164 member countries, see World Trade Organization, “Members and Observers,” https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/org6_e.htm (accessed January 4, 2024).

Major Works Cited

T he 2024 Index of Economic Freedom relies on data from a variety of internationally recognized sources to present a representation of economic freedom in each country that is as comprehensive, impartial, and accurate as possible. The following sources provided the primary information used in analyzing and scoring the 12 components of economic freedom. The authors and analysts also used supporting documentation and information from various government agencies and sites on the Internet, news reports and journal articles, and official responses to inquiries. All statistical and other information received from government sources was verified with independent third-party sources of demonstrated reliability.

• African Development Bank and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, African Economic Outlook 2023 ; available at https://www.afdb.org/en/news-keywords/african-economic-outlook-2023 .
• African Financial Markets Initiative, Country Financial Sector Profiles ; available at https://www.afdb.org/en/countries .
• Asian Development Bank, ADB Data Library, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific, 2023 ; available at https://www.adb.org/publications/series/key-indicators-for-asia-and-the-pacific .
• Country statistical agencies, central banks, and ministries of finance, economy, and trade; available at https://unstats.un.org/home/nso_sites/ and at https://www.bis.org/cbanks.htm .
• Credendo Group, Country Risk and Insights , 2023; available at https://www.credendo.com/country-risk .
• Deloitte, International Tax Source, Tax Guides and Highlights; available at https://www.dits.deloitte.com/ .
• European Union, European Commission, Eurostat; available at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/database .
• Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2023 ; available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world .
• International Labour Organization, “ILO Modelled Estimates (ILOEST Database);” available at https://ilostat.ilo.org/resources/concepts-and-definitions/ilo-modelled-estimates/ .
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Visibility and Rhetoric: The Power of Visual Images In Norman Rockwell's Depictions of Civil Rights

2005, Quarterly Journal of Speech

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ONLINE SYMPOSIUM: Picturing Freedom: A Century of Illustration

By rich bradway | dec 21, 2020.

A SYMPOSIUM ORGANIZED BY THE ROCKWELL CENTER FOR AMERICAN VISUAL STUDIES & D.B. DOWD MODERN GRAPHIC HISTORY LIBRARY

Symposium Information

Recorded: January 15 - 16, 2021 

Description

For designers, cartoonists, and illustrators, many questions arise when creating art that takes up socially significant, sometimes controversial themes. Some choose the D.I.Y. route, working independently with a free hand, without access to the large scale distribution that comes with a recognizable masthead. Others work with leading news organizations and magazines, agreeing to collaborate in exchange for access to audiences. Popular art has always involved such choices. What are the tradeoffs? What are the rewards? 

Symposium Schedule

Friday, January 15: 7pm - 7:30pm | Welcome & Opening Commentary

• Welcome –  7pm Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, Deputy Director/Chief Curator, Norman Rockwell Museum  
• Opening Commentary: Thoughts on Freedom from Fear  Erika Doss, Ph.D., Professor of American Studies, Notre Dame University; Rockwell Center Distinguished Fellow

Friday, January 15: 7:30pm - 8:30pm | Keynote Address

• Keynote Address – 7:30 pm – Freedom V. Fear: A History of Anti-Fascist Art  
• Steven Heller, Author, Illustration/Graphic Design Historian, Educator Bloodless wars for hearts and minds takes place on a battlefield of perception. The weaponry is paper. The ammunition are posters, magazines and printed graphic design. This talk will address the power of propaganda, the concerted effort to manipulate the conscious and subconscious through words and pictures – typography and illustration. Steven Heller has written extensively on design/illustration and Fascism, notably The Swastika and Symbols of Hate: Extremist Iconography Today, a nuanced and comprehensive examination of the most powerful symbol ever created.

Saturday, January 16: 10am - 10:30am | Welcome & Opening Commentary

• Freedoms of Speech & Artistic Expression - 10am  
• Welcome –  10am D.B. Dowd, Professor and Faculty Director, D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, Washington University in St. Louis  
• Opening Commentary: Freedom of Speech and the Press Kevin Moran, Editor of The Berkshire Eagle

Saturday, January 16: 10:30am - 11:30am | Panel 1

• DIY Print Culture and Citizenship – 10:30am  
• Chair: Ryan Standfest, Editor and Publisher of Rotland Press  
• Panelists: Illustrators Sue Coe; Christopher Sperandio, Robert Sikoryak

Reflecting upon Norman Rockwell’s representation of “the ideal” of freedom in his interpretation of Roosevelt’s  Four Freedoms , this panel will delve into a nuanced and contemporary grappling with the “less than ideal”—when visual satire is often summoned and the depiction of villainy is necessitated. Within DIY print culture, the artist/citizen introduces such visual political work into the greater culture with a minimum of means, without relying upon a mainstream system of distribution: cheaply produced pamphlets, affordable prints, and the use of social media platforms. For such artists, the question of audience engagement is crucial: how to responsibly affect a culture of political ideas from a place of independent agency.

Saturday, January 16: 11:30 - 11:45 | Break

Saturday, January 16: 11:45am - 12:45pm | Panel 2

• Resistance and Mainstream Publishing: Media, Delivery, and Propaganda – 11:45am  
• Chairs: D.B. Dowd and Stephanie Haboush Plunkett  
• Panelists: Illustrators Nora Krug, Anita Kunz, and Rudy Gutierrez

Our publishing ecosystem is in need of attention, as local journalism falters, media consolidation intensifies, and social media contribute to the spread of disinformation, collectively undermining the factual bases upon which argument depends. The veracity of online outlets can be hard to establish; the cultural filtration systems we rely on to evaluate sources will develop, but they will take time. For now, existing publications and institutions must step in to underscore and support our shared democratic values. Freedom of expression for artists working within mainstream publishing will be explored.  

Saturday, January 16: 12:45pm - 1:15pm | Wrap Up: Audience and Panelist Discussion

Participant Biographies

Sue Coe  is an English artist and illustrator working primarily in drawing, printmaking, and in the form of illustrated books and comics. Her work is in the tradition of social protest art and often includes animal rights commentary, though she also creates work that centralizes the rights of marginalized peoples and criticizes capitalism. Her commentary on political events and social injustice are published in newspapers, magazines and books. As an illustrator, she is a frequent contributor to World War 3 Illustrated, and has seen her work published in The Progressive, Mother Jones, Blab, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and The Nation. Her books explore apartheid and the murder of Steve Biko in How to Commit Suicide in South Africa; Sheep of Fools, a horrific look at the conditions of sheep trade; and Dead Meat, a journalistic piece illustrating the brutality of slaughterhouses throughout North America, among other subjects.

Erika Doss  is an art historian and professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her wide-ranging interests in American art are reflected in the breadth of her publications and public lectures, which typically engage the complexities of modern and contemporary American visual and material cultures including the nature of representation and issues of history, memory, and identity—national, cultural, and self.

Her books include Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism, Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities, Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image, American Art of the 20th and 21st Centuries, Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, and others. Doss is also co-editor of the “Culture America” series at the University Press of Kansas, and has served on the editorial boards of American Quarterly, American Art, Memory Studies, Public Art Dialogue, and The Space Between: Literature and Culture, 1914-1945. A recipient of several Fulbright Awards, Doss has also held fellowships at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Wolfsonian, the Stanford Humanities Center, and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center.  In 2017, she was named to the first Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Society of Fellows at the Norman Rockwell Museum.

D. B. Dowd  is an illustrator, designer, and Professor of Art and American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He is faculty director of the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, in the Division of Special Collections in Washington University Libraries, and has led the Society of Fellows at the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, a program of the Norman Rockwell Museum. The author and illustrator of Spartan Holidays, an award-winning visual journal, Dowd has written and spoken extensively on published imagery and comics. His book Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice was published by the Rockwell Center in 2018; A is for Autocrat is his most recent publication.

Rudy Gutierrez is an American illustrator and educator born in the Bronx, NY, of Puerto Rican heritage, and raised in Teaneck, NJ. He has been a professor of illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he has taught since 1990. The artist’s work has appeared in films and performances, and on U.S. Postage stamps (Musical Icon Series of Jimi Hendrix), posters, and LP / CD covers. His artwork for Santana’s “Shaman” was used as a set design at the 2002 Super Bowl half-time show and for various products. More recently, his paintings have been commissioned for the film “Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary.” Featured in many public and private collections, his art is included in those of musical icons Carlos Santana, Clive Davis, and Wayne Shorter. Gutierrez’s many awards include the Society of Illustrators’ Dean Cornwell Recognition Hall of Fame Award, Distinguished Educator in the Arts Award, and Gold Medal. His children’s books have earned a Pura Belpre Award, Americas Book Award, Children’s Africana Book Awards, and a New York Book Award. Communication Arts, Step by Step Graphics, Art News, American Illustration, American Artist and Art Direction Magazine have featured his art.

Steven Heller  was for thirty-three years an art director at the New York Times, originally on the OpEd Page and with the New York Times Book Review. Currently, he is co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author Department, Special Consultant to the President of SVA for New Programs, and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review. Heller is the co-founder and co-chair (with Lita Talarico) of the MFA Designer as Author program at the School of Visual Arts, where he lectures on the history of graphic design. Prior to this, he lectured on the history of illustration in the school’s MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program, and was director for ten years of SVA’s Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design symposiums. For over two decades he has been contributing editor to Print, Eye, Baseline, and ID magazines, contributing hundreds of articles to these and other design and culture journals. The author, co-author, and/or editor of many books on design and popular culture, Heller has worked with a score of publishers, including Chronicle Books, Allworth Press, Harry N. Abrams, Phaidon Press, Taschen Press, Abbeville Press, Thames & Hudson, Rockport, Northlight, and more. Recent books include Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian State, an anaylsis of how the major dictatorships used graphics to propagate their ideologies, and The Swastika and Symbols of Hate: Extremist Iconography Today, a comprehensive examination of the most powerful symbol ever created.

Nora Krug  is a German-American author and illustrator whose drawings and visual narratives have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde diplomatique, and A Public Space, and in anthologies published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Simon and Schuster and Chronicle Books. Krug has received fellowships from Fulbright, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Maurice Sendak Foundation, and her books are included in the Library of Congress and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. Krug was named Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year and 2019 Book Illustration Prize Winner by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her visual memoir Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home was chosen as a best book of the year by the New York Times, The Guardian, NPR, Kirkus Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe. It was the winner of the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award (Autobiography Category), of the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, the Art Directors Club gold cube and discipline winner cube, and the British Book Design and Production Award. Her visual biography, Kamikaze, about a surviving Japanese WWII pilot, was included in Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Comics and Best Non-Required Reading, and her animations have been shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Krug is Associate Professor of Illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.

Anita Kunz  has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian honor. She has lived in London, New York, and Toronto, contributing to magazines and working for design firms, book publishers, and advertising agencies in Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Canada, South Africa, Holland, Portugal, France and England. Her work has been published regularly in Time magazine, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, and The New York Times, among others, and she illustrated more than fifty book jacket covers. Kunz frequently teaches workshops and lectures at universities and institutions internationally including the Smithsonian and the Corcoran in Washington DC, The Art Center and Otis in Los Angeles, The School of Visual Arts and Parsons in New York, and in Istanbul and Oslo. Her art is featured in the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum, among others.

Kevin Moran  is the executive editor of The Berkshire Eagle, which since its return to local ownership in 2016, has captured several Newspaper of the Year titles and General Excellence awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. A native of the Berkshires, Moran also has served as managing editor of The Berkshire Eagle, the Brattleboro Reformer and North Adams Transcript. A past president of the New England Associated Press News Executives Association, he also has been a mentor for foreign journalists with Alfred Friendly Press Partners.

Stephanie Haboush Plunket t is the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum. The curator of many exhibitions relating to the art of illustration, including Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms; Inventing America: Rockwell and Warhol; Rockwell and Realism in an Abstract World; Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs; and The Unknown Hopper: Edward Hopper as Illustrator, she leads the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, the first scholarly institute devoted to the study of illustration art. She has taught graduate students at the Maryland Institute College of art and worked previously at Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and the Heckscher Museum of Art. “The Shifting Postwar Marketplace: Illustration in the United States and Canada, 1940-1970” in History of Illustration, and Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School are recent publications.

R. Sikoryak  is a cartoonist and author of the graphic novels Constitution Illustrated, The Unquotable Trump, Masterpiece Comics and Terms and Conditions (Drawn & Quarterly). His illustrations have appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, The Nation, NY Times Book Review, Fortune, and within many other publications. Sikoryak teaches at Parsons School of Design. Since 1997, he’s presented his live comics performance series, Carousel, around the U.S. and Canada. Visit rsikoryak.com or follow Instagram.com/rsikoryak/.

Christopher Sperandio , half of the artist team of Grennan & Sperandio, has produced comic books as artworks for museums in the U.S. and Europe. Bridging the High/Low divide, these works include Modern Masters, a cross-over comic for the Museum of Modern Art  published by DC Comics. Other works include Life in Prison and the Invisible City, published by Fantagraphics. Sperandio has produced new collaborative artworks in conjunction with museums and art centers in the US, Germany, Northern Ireland, Denmark, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, and France. Commissioning institutions include MoMA/PS1, the Public Art Fund, Creative Time, London’s Institute of Contemporary Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The  Executive Producer of ARTSTAR, an internationally syndicated documentary television series about emerging contemporary artists, Sperandio is Associate Professor of Drawing and Painting at Rice University in Houston, where he founded the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop.

Ryan Standfest  is an artist, arts writer, and the editor-in-chief and publisher of Rotland Press, which presents satirical publications of a culturally relevant nature. His publications and prints are in numerous major collections, and his work has been exhibited widely, both in the United States and abroad. Standfest has penned criticism and essays for the Detroit arts and culture journal Infinite Mile, Detroit Art Review, and Essay’d. He contributed a chapter to the book Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance, edited by Elliott H. King and Abigail Susik, forthcoming from Penn State University Press in 2021. Websites: ryanstandfest.com (studio) and rotlandpress.com (publishing).

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A Visual Exploration of the Four Freedoms

Students will be introduced to the Four Freedoms, which President Roosevelt identified in his 1941 address to Congress. Each of these freedoms, including Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear will be addressed individually. By creating a visual inventory of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms illustrations, students will identify and analyze details in his paintings.

This lesson is designed for two- 60 minute class periods.

• Enduring Understandings/ Essential Questions:
• President Roosevelt made a speech about the four main freedoms he felt that everyone everywhere in the world was entitled to.
• Norman Rockwell wanted to paint pictures of the Four Freedoms for the American people to help them understand what the president’s speech was about, and what these freedoms might look like in their own lives.
• What is the importance of President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech?
• How did Norman Rockwell’s personal experiences and surroundings influence his paintings?
• Objectives:
• Students will share any prior knowledge about the Four Freedoms (President Roosevelt’s speech or Rockwell’s paintings).
• Students will create a visual inventory of each painting.
• Students will use prior knowledge to make associations with the subject matter and historical events.
• Students will identify visual metaphors.
• Background:

  World War II began in 1939. The United States was not involved in the beginning of the war, however, President Franklin Roosevelt believed that the United States would eventually need to play a larger role. In January 1941, he made his speech to Congress. In his speech, President Roosevelt named the Four Freedoms, which he stated are the rights of everyone in the world. After the speech, in an effort to convey the underlying message of the Four Freedoms, the President reached out to the art world for help. Many artists created works to reflect the meaning of these freedoms in the form of paintings, sculptures, prints, musical compositions, and more. Norman Rockwell thought a lot about these ideals. In February and March of 1943, his completed Four Freedoms illustrations were published in The Saturday Evening Post, each along with a related essay. Exceedingly popular at the time and distributed widely as prints and posters, Norman Rockwell's illustrations raised over 132 million dollars toward the war effort through the purchase of war bonds. Prints of Rockwell’s Four Freedoms were given as premiums when people purchased war bonds in varying denominations. His illustrations became the face of the Four Freedoms and they continue to represent the meaning of these freedoms today.

Multimedia Resources

Freedom of speech.

Freedom of Worship

Freedom from Want

Freedom from Fear

• Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms

Norman Rockwell Museum

• Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms

• A Conversation with Ruby Bridges Hall

• Womanpower: The Fight for the Four Freedoms

The Atlantic Charter: Hope for a New World

Classroom supplies:.

• Easel, whiteboard or chalkboard for writing on
• Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms: Images that Inspire a Nation  by Stuart Murray, and James McCabe
• Four Freedoms Group Analysis Worksheet (5-12)
• Reading handout excerpt from President Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech
• Reading handout excerpt from  My Adventures as an Illustrator  by Norman Rockwell
• The Atlantic Charter:   https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc581/

Additional Teaching Resources:

A variety of  books on Norman Rockwell and his work including but not limited to:

The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge   by The Norman Rockwell Museum  

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera  by Ron Schick

Norman Rockwell’s America  by Christopher Finch

American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell  by Linda  Szekely Pero

Norman Rockwell’s Counting Book  by Gloria Tabor

Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artist: Norman Rockwell  by Mike Venezia

Norman Rockwell: Storyteller with a Brush   by Beverly Sherman

My Adventures as an Illustrator   by  Norman Rockwell

A Rockwell Portrait: An Intimate Biography  by Donald Walton

Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms , edited by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett and James J. Kimble, Ph.D.

• Activities:

“In future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -

Everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want - which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear - which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide redaction of armaments to such a point and in such a   thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -

anywhere in the world.” (Murray & McCabe, 6)

•  Share the reproductions of Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings with students. Ask them which painting best represents Freedom of Speech? Why? Allow students time to look closely at the images. After identifying Freedom of Speech , set aside the other artworks.  Focusing their attention on Rockwell’s Freedom of Speech , ask if anyone has seen this illustration before. Ask students to look closely at the foreground, middle ground, and background, and to point out what they see, not what they perceive. The class will collectively take a visual inventory. The teacher may offer the first example if students are unclear; for example, say: “I see a man standing up with his mouth slightly open.” Restate student observations as they are made and record each on chart paper, whiteboard or blackboard. By doing this, students will analyze the art and find clues and symbols to help them read the image. When their list appears to be complete, have students infer what story is being told.
•  When you feel the analysis of Freedom of Speech is complete, organize the class into three groups. Each group will be given a copy of one of the remaining illustrations and a Four Freedoms Group Analysis Worksheet (5-12) . Each group will work to complete the analysis worksheet.  Circulate around the classroom, making informal checks for understanding and offering help with any questions. Once all of the groups have completed the worksheet, each group will present their analysis. After each group’s presentation, allow some time for other students to ask questions or make comments related to the illustration
•  When all of the illustrations have been analyzed by students, distribute the handout, Excerpt from My Adventures as an Illustrator by Norman Rockwell for students to read and discuss. Project the poster of the Atlantic Charter for students to read and discuss as well .
•  After having looked at the four illustrations, reading the Atlantic Charter and reading what Rockwell explained about his inspirations, engage the students in a conversation about how Rockwell’s experiences influenced his work and how different people responded to them.
• Assessment:
• Students will be evaluated on whether they have demonstrated appropriate listening and speaking skills during their participation in the group discussion.
• Students will be evaluated on their participation in analyzing the text, and their analysis of the illustration
• Students will be evaluated on their participation in the class discussion and analysis of paintings through informal checks of understanding.
• Students will be evaluated on their participation in the group effort to take a visual inventory of each of the paintings.

This curriculum meets the standards listed below. Look for more details on these standards please visit:  ELA and Math Standards ,  Social Studies Standards , Visual Arts Standards .

• Copy of S565FreedomOfSpeech.jpg
• Copy of S566FreedomToWorship.jpg
• Copy of S567FreedomFromWant.jpg
• Copy of S568FreedomFromFear.jpg

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Norman rockwell’s ‘four freedoms’ brought the ideals of america to life.

This wartime painting series reminded Americans what they were fighting for

Alice George

Museums Correspondent

Norman Rockwell, the master of Americana, captured the essence of daily life in hundreds of 20th-century magazine covers, and 75 years ago this month, he accomplished a greater feat, translating the nation’s ideals into indelible images known as the Four Freedoms .

By illuminating rights that every American—and every person—should enjoy, Rockwell’s Four Freedoms validated the U.S. decision to enter World War II and overcome powerful enemies whose actions devalued human life. His enduring messages have lingered in the national consciousness, remaining as significant today as they were when the Saturday Evening Post published them in four consecutive weeks during the winter of 1943.

Rockwell’s images had a clear meaning, says the Smithsonian’s Larry Bird : “Why we fight, what we’re about, what we’re fighting for, what we’re fighting to save.” Bird is co-curator of the National Museum of American History’s exhibition “ American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith,” which features a large set of the original Four Freedoms war bond posters from 1943.

Immediately after publishing Rockwell’s four paintings— Freedom of Speech , Freedom of Religion , Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear —the magazine received 25,000 requests to purchase copies. Color reproductions of all four sold for 25 cents apiece. The paintings became the basis for 4 million war posters sold as part of the War Bonds effort, raising $132,992,539. “They were received by the public with more enthusiasm, perhaps, than any other paintings in the history of American art,” The New Yorker reported in 1945. 

Within weeks of publication, Rockwell’s paintings began a national journey. Across 16 separate cities, a total of 1.2 million people lined up to see the paintings, which were put on display in department stores, not museums. Those who bought war bonds received color reproductions in return. After completing that tour, the paintings rode the rails to a wider assortment of towns and cities, where Americans could admire Rockwell’s works in a custom-made train car. 

Although the paintings became famous as an endorsement of the struggle to defend American ideals in World War II, the Four Freedoms first entered the American lexicon in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s January 1941 State of the Union address, almost a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor swept the United States onto the field of battle. At the beginning of 1941, when isolationist sentiments still held sway over many Americans, Roosevelt’s goal was a simple one: to convince voters that standing alone ultimately could sacrifice freedoms at home and abroad.

“By an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers,” he told Americans. “We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.”

FDR then  described  the four freedoms every human being should enjoy—an addition to the speech that the president himself made in its fourth draft. He wanted to make Americans understand why the United States should provide material support for the western Allies as they battled Germany’s Nazi regime and the Japanese empire, both of which were stripping away individual rights. At the time, Roosevelt was convinced the United States was not ready to enter the war, but he believed armaments production for the Allies represented one way to protect cherished freedoms without risking American lives. While his speech planted a seed of inspiration in Rockwell’s brain, staunch isolationists rejected FDR’s message, claiming that it promoted war.

The United States and Great Britain wrapped Roosevelt’s ideas into the Atlantic Charter  issued  in August 1941. Both the State of the Union and the Atlantic Charter represented these freedoms as international ideals—rights that should belong to anyone anywhere. And through international initiatives such as disarmament and economic stability agreements, any nation should be able to exist without fear and with the opportunity to offer broad rights to its citizens.

For Americans, the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion. “Freedom from want” and “freedom from fear” are nowhere in the nation’s founding documents, but they reflect the hopes of a nation emerging from the Great Depression and preparing to enter the biggest global conflict ever. “They are aspirational goals that we, or at least those who believed in the sort of New Deal politics, saw as the role of government,” says Harry R. Rubenstein , who also curated the museum's exhibition  American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith  and, like Bird, is a contributor to a book bearing the same title.

Seventeen months after FDR’s address, Rockwell traveled to Washington to promote his idea of illustrating the Four Freedoms to bolster the war effort. His autobiography states that not one official initially welcomed his proposal. The hard truth was that there were people inside and outside of government who questioned the artistic value of Rockwell’s storytelling works, which were often equated with advertising illustrations. Ultimately, though—and the historical record is unclear on the details here—Rockwell was able to persuade the powers that were, reaching an agreement to produce the paintings for the government and the Saturday Evening Post  magazine.

After promising to create the images, Rockwell faced the difficult task of transforming governmental phraseology into evocative tableaux on canvas. He had expected to finish all four scenes in two months, but the work dragged on through seven months of false starts and revisions.

Nonetheless, Rockwell was fully committed to the  Four Freedoms . “I just cannot express to you how much this series means to me. Aside from their wonderful patriotic motive,” he told his impatient editors, “there are no subjects which could rival them in opportunity for human interest.”

With the February 20, 1943 issue of  The Saturday Evening Post , the paintings began appearing weekly, each  accompanied  by an essay.  Freedom of Speech  features a blue-collar worker speaking to a room filled with more finely dressed Americans, all listening intently to the Lincolnesque figure’s words.  Freedom of Religion  depicts several individuals of different religious backgrounds in a moment of prayer. A man wearing a fez holds a Bible or Koran; a woman fingers a rosary. Rockwell worked for two months on this painting, which carries an inscription: “Each according to the dictates of his own conscience.” The artist said later that he could not recall the source of the words; however, almost identical language can be found in the “Thirteen Articles of Faith” written by prophet Joseph Smith in 1842 to explain the bedrock beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).

Freedom from Want  pictures a large, healthy family eagerly awaiting a Thanksgiving feast. In  Freedom from Fear,  a mother and a father check on their sleeping children. In the father’s hand is a newspaper reporting the bombing of London—the only international reference in all four paintings. Rockwell finished these two paintings most quickly, and later said he thought they were the weakest. However, Bird says  Freedom from Fear  “continues to speak to me, just in daily life. And in that sense, it’s timeless.” Whether the headline refers to German attacks on London or to frightening developments in today’s world, the painting’s message applies.

While the  Four Freedoms  experienced huge success within the United States, they met a less receptive audience abroad. FDR described freedoms that should belong to everyone in all nations. Rockwell’s paintings, on the other hand, showed recognizably American scenes and seemed to celebrate life in the United States. Like most of his works, they portrayed Americans as a humble, God-fearing people who enjoy a strong and prosperous family life. 

Freedom from Want  features a dinner table laden with food—an image that rankled non-Americans suffering from the effects of wartime shortages. The sumptuous scene is colored by a playful Rockwell smiling up at the viewer from the lower right-hand corner. (This occasional representation of himself, much like film director Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo appearances in his suspenseful films, offers an unexpected dash of humor. A single eye on  Freedom of Speech ’s right edge also belongs to Rockwell. He thought that inserting part or all of his face into scenes appropriately cast doubt on connections between art and truth.)  Freedom from Fear , too, irritated some people in Allied war zones who were unable to protect their children from an immediate threat. Oceans away from World War II’s battlefronts, Rockwell’s protective parents enjoyed an extra layer of safety unavailable to parents in most nations at war.

Rockwell’s simple images transmit complex messages. What Bird calls “his toolkit” included Rockwell’s interpretation of “human nature, human condition, irony, juxtaposition of things”—all part of a technique now well-known to most Americans. Rubenstein believes “the genius of his work is taking a very lofty ideal and bringing it down to the most personal experience.” He also sees Rockwell’s choice of domestic scenes as one of the paintings’ strengths: “These aren’t the politicians; these aren’t heroic soldiers. These are the people who support the nation, or what the nation had been and hoped to be again.”

Roosevelt admired Rockwell’s skillful delivery of a potent message. “I think you have done a superb job in bringing home to the plain, everyday citizens the plain, everyday truths behind the Four Freedoms,” he told Rockwell. Says Bird, the artist “dramatized their meaning in a way that was not available to Roosevelt, as great as he was as a radio orator and as a communicator.” Capturing idealized visions of Americans, what Bird calls “our better angels,” empowers Rockwell’s art.

After the war, the already well-traveled paintings made another national expedition aboard the Freedom Train. More than 3.5 million Americans in 326 cities saw them on that 1947-48 trek. The offices of the  Saturday Evening Post  served as the paintings’ home throughout the 1950s and most of the 1960s, with Rockwell finally reclaiming them before the magazine closed its doors in 1969.

Today, the paintings reside in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, but this year, they  begin  another tour, entitled "Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms."  It starts in May at the New York Historical Society, and visits Detroit, Washington, D.C., Houston and Caen in Normandy, France.

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Alice George | | READ MORE

Alice George, Ph.D. is an independent historian with a special interest in America during the 1960s. A veteran newspaper editor, she is recently the author of The Last American Hero: The Remarkable Life of John Glenn and has authored or co-authored seven other books, focusing on 20th-century American history or Philadelphia history.