Measuring Liberty

Bush wars have a trade-off: freedom. Civil and democratic rights are in retreat. Cambodia seems to move backward even though it is not the worst yet. The “worst of the worst” include Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Over the past half century, it often seemed that the advance of democracy and basic freedoms was ineluctable. First the Europeans let their colonies go. Then the Soviet empire fell, and with it the communist monopoly on power in eastern Europe. And apartheid ended in South Africa.
Recently, though, freedom's progress may have come to a halt, or even gone into reverse. That, at least, is the conclusion of Freedom House, an august American lobby group whose observations on the state of liberty are a keenly watched indicator. Its report for 2007 speaks of a “profoundly disturbing deterioration” in the global picture, with reversals seen in 38 countries—nearly four times as many as are showing any sign of improvement.

Insiders say that in years past, there was some internal debate at Freedom House over whether or not economic welfare, which affects the range of choices people can make, should be included in the calculus of liberty. But the decision has been to keep economic factors out. How much freer do people feel when they have a few roubles or yuan in their pocket (and access to other goodies like computers and compact discs)?