Can reliable international comparisons of human flourishing be made using subjective survey data?

 

The idea that human flourishing is the proper measure of a good society goes back to Aristotle, but modern attempts to compare flourishing internationally using subjective survey data raise difficult questions. That is illustrated in the scatter chart shown above - which compares the degree of human flourishing in different countries as measured by the new Global Flourishing Study (GFS) with average life evaluation data for those countries using the methodology of the World Happiness Report (WHR). The GFS flourishing index is based on surveys covering various aspects of human flourishing, while the WHR data derives from the Cantril Ladder approach: a single question asking people to rate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing the worst possible life and 10 representing the best possible life.

One would expect people who give a relatively low rating to their lives under the WHR approach to be assessed as having a relatively low degree of flourishing under the GFS approach, and vice versa for those who give their lives a relatively high rating. Surprisingly, the chart suggests little correlation between the two indexes. People in Tanzania, Egypt and Kenya, for example, have lower average life evaluation ratings than people in Sweden, the U.S. and Australia, yet are assessed under GFS methodology to have higher average levels of flourishing.

This divergence raises three questions which the following sections of this essay address:

• Does the methodology of the GFS incorporate more reliable standards for international comparisons than the WHR/Cantril approach?
• Is the GFS approach to measuring human flourishing consistent with Aristotelian ideas about the nature of flourishing?
• Do composite indexes provide a more reliable basis for international comparisons of opportunities to flourish?

Reliability of GFS Methodology

The Global Flourishing Study includes over 200,000 survey participants in 22 countries. The countries were selected to maximize coverage of the world’s population and to ensure geographic, cultural and religious diversity. It is a longitudinal panel study with intended annual survey data collection for 5 years. The domains of flourishing covered in the study encompass health, happiness, meaning, character, relationships and financial security.

More confidence can be placed on analyses using subjective data for individual countries than on cross-country comparisons because the former pose fewer problems in interpretation of survey questions. (Recent trends in indicators of subjective wellbeing in some wealthy countries are suggesting that young people are experiencing greater difficulty flourishing in those countries. I strongly support research directed toward improving understanding of why this is occurring and have made a personal contribution to this work.)

My main concern in this essay is with excessive reliance on subjective data in making international comparisons. The authors of the GFS note that caution is needed in interpreting cross-national differences (VanderWeele, 2025, p.647) but that has not prevented attention being drawn to  country rankings.

The scatter charts shown below suggest that at a national level there is more correlation between GFS flourishing and “happiness” and “life satisfaction” indicators than between GFS flourishing and WHR life evaluation. Nevertheless, the GFS index suggests that people in some countries are flourishing despite relatively low average scores for happiness and life satisfaction.

 

The happiness question is: “In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?” The life satisfaction question: “Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?” There has been extensive research related to the question of what standard of comparison people use in responding to such questions. Some research has suggested that people compare their current state to an adaptation level — a running average of past experience when asked to rate their happiness or life satisfaction. A large body of work suggests that relative income often matters as much as or more than absolute income for self-reports on wellbeing. Cross-cultural research has found that the implicit comparison standard vary by culture. Moreover, seemingly trivial contextual factors can dramatically shift happiness and life satisfaction reports.

In some ways, the GFS is more susceptible to standard of comparison problems than a simple life satisfaction or happiness survey:

• Self-rated health is known to be heavily reference dependent. People assess their health relative to age peers, to their own past health, or to an idealized standard. Which reference point dominates varies by culture and age.
• Questions relating to meaning and purpose are especially vulnerable to context effects, because "meaning" is a highly abstract judgment with no obvious natural metric. Whatever has been made salient by preceding questions — religious identity, family, work — is likely to dominate the response.
• Questions about honesty, generosity, self-control and so on invite comparison to either an ideal standard or a perceived social norm. Those standards can diverge sharply.

The Cantril ladder approach used in the WHR was designed to be self-anchoring to address some of those problems. By asking respondents to define "best possible life" and "worst possible life" for themselves, this approach sidesteps the problem of imposing a culturally specific conception of flourishing.

However, the perceptions that respondents have of the best possible and worst possible life depend on the reference group they use as a basis for comparison. That would not pose a problem if there is broad agreement among people throughout the world on what constitutes the best possible and worst possible life. Perhaps such broad agreement exists, but I am not aware of definitive research findings about that.

Aristotelian perspectives

Modern researchers who seek to quantify the extent to which people are flourishing often refer to Aristotle as a source of inspiration for their focus on a broad concept of human flourishing rather than on happiness as an emotional state. That raises the question of whether the GFS approach is consistent with Aristotelian perspectives.

The GFS view of human flourishing as multi-dimensional is certainly consistent with Aristotle’s approach. The domains identified in the overview of the GFS seem to be broadly consistent with Aristotle’s understanding of the basic goods of a flourishing human (VanderWeele, 2025).

However, from an Aristotelian perspective, it is disappointing that the study does not acknowledge the central importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) to individual flourishing. Practical wisdom is the intelligent management of one’s life with a view to attaining the goods necessary to one’s own flourishing. The exercise of practical wisdom is so intimately related to actualization of unique potentialities in the context of available opportunities that it makes sense to view flourishing as synonymous with “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom” (Den Uyl and Rasmussen, 2016, p. 33). 

Some research associated with the GFS has focused on mastery which is assessed by asking: “How often do you feel very capable in most things you do in life?” (Kim, 2025). There is some overlap between mastery and practical wisdom: the exercise of practical wisdom involves more than theoretical knowledge – it requires development of skills necessary to navigate real circumstances toward genuine flourishing. The mastery concept captures something of this efficacy dimension — the sense that one can actually direct one's life rather than being at the mercy of circumstances.

An important difference between mastery and practical wisdom is evident in the measurement of mastery in the GFS. Self-reported mastery ranges from 90% of the population in Mexico to 39% in Japan. Do such divergent responses reflect differences in the exercise of practical wisdom or differences in the incidence of hubris and modesty in different populations? There is no way of knowing. Responses to the mastery question capture a subjective sense of control which may have little to do with wisdom. Genuinely wise people with accurate perception of their own limitations do not necessarily score highly in their responses to the mastery question.

My point is that the exercise of practical wisdom – an activity integral to human flourishing – defies measurement using subjective survey data. There would be no point in including survey questions about the exercise of practical wisdom because the perceptions people have about the quality of decisions they make is often a poor guide to actual decision quality. A person of deficient character or limited understanding may feel entirely satisfied with their choices while lacking the practical wisdom required to make good choices.

Comparing opportunities using composite indexes

In deciding what to measure, it seems to me to be particularly important to understand the purposes for which measurements are being made. The overview of the GFS states:

“What we measure shapes what we discuss, what we know, what we aim for and the policies put in place to achieve those aims. We hope that the GFS itself, and the understandings that arise from it, will shift discussion and policy toward the promotion of flourishing” (VanderWeele, 2025, p.647).

That may be true, but it may also be a recipe for futile or counterproductive government interventions.

It seems to me that the central importance of practical wisdom to individual flourishing provides a strong reason to be modest about the ability of governments to promote human flourishing. The most governments can do is to influence opportunities available. The way individuals respond to those opportunities rests in their own hands.

 It is important to recognize that governments can have a profound impact on the opportunities for human flourishing. One of the most important contributions they can make is to reduce the negative impacts of their policies.

In Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I identified five basic goods of a flourishing human:

·        Wise and well-informed self-direction

·        Health and longevity

·        Positive relationships

·        Living in harmony with nature

·        Psychological well-being (Bates, 2021).

I noted that it is possible to teach people about the virtues of wise and well-informed self-direction, but it is doubtful that anyone has ever learned to exercise much practical wisdom in the management of their lives without having to accept responsibility for the choices they make. From a public policy perspective, it makes more sense to focus on the opportunities of people to exercise self-direction than to attempt to measure the quality of choices that they make. That is why I focused on objective measures of liberty in discussing opportunities for self-direction (Bates, 2021, pp. 65-6).

In considering opportunities for health and longevity, I argued that objective data on healthy life expectancy is a better indicator than self-reported health of differing prospects for individuals a long and healthy life in different countries (Bates, 2021, pp. 67-8).

Subjective data on levels of trust were suggested to measure differing opportunities for people to have positive relationships with others (Bates, 2021, pp. 68-9).

I discussed the complex relationships between economic growth and opportunities to live in harmony with nature (Bates, 2021, pp. 70-73).

Subjective data (WHR life evaluation) was used to indicate differing opportunities for people to enjoy psychological wellbeing (Bates, 2021, pp. 74-5).

Other researchers have also seen merit in using a mixture of subjective and objective indicators in making international comparisons of opportunities to flourish. The OECD’s Better Life Index is an example of a composite index that incorporates both objective and subjective components.

Conclusion

The scatter chart that opens this essay poses a genuine puzzle: why do country rankings of the Global Flourishing Study and World Happiness Report diverge so sharply? This essay has argued that the divergence reflects real limitations in both instruments rather than a straightforward vindication of either. Subjective survey data is susceptible to comparison-basis problems — the implicit standards people use when evaluating their lives vary by culture, context, and the framing of preceding questions — and these problems are considerably more serious for international comparisons than for within-country research. The Cantril ladder's self-anchoring design offers some protection against the imposition of culturally specific conceptions of flourishing, and its results have reasonable face validity when set alongside objective indicators of living standards and liberty. But whether people in different countries anchor the ladder's endpoints in comparable ways remains an open empirical question.

The more fundamental difficulty is philosophical. Both the GFS and the WHR treat subjective self-assessment as the primary evidence of flourishing. Aristotle, whose conception of eudaimonia inspired modern flourishing research, would have been skeptical of this. Flourishing in the Aristotelian sense is not simply a matter of feeling satisfied with one's life; it requires the exercise of practical wisdom — the intelligent, well-informed management of one's life in pursuit of genuine goods. People's perceptions of the quality of their choices are often unreliable guides to whether they are actually exercising such wisdom. This is not a limitation that better survey design can overcome; it reflects something important about the nature of flourishing itself.

These considerations point toward a more modest and pluralistic approach to international comparisons. Objective indicators — of liberty, healthy life expectancy, trust, and material security — can identify the opportunities available to people in different countries to lead flourishing lives. Subjective data retains value, particularly for tracking trends within countries over time. What neither approach can do is measure the quality of the choices individuals make within the opportunities available to them. That, in the end, is for individuals themselves to determine — which is precisely why the central policy implication of an Aristotelian perspective is not the promotion of flourishing by governments, but the protection and expansion of the conditions under which people can flourish for themselves.

References

Bates, Winton Russell, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing (Hamilton Books, 2021).

Den Uyl, Douglas J. and Douglas B. Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn (Edinburgh University Press, 2016).

Kim, Eric S. et. al. “Mapping demographic variations in sense of mastery across the world a cross-national analysis of 22 countries in the global flourishing study”, Scientific Reports, 15 (2025).

Lomas, T. et. al. “Exploring associations of three evaluative subjective wellbeing measures (Cantril's ladder, life satisfaction, happiness) with 15 childhood and demographic factors across 22 countries”, Scientific Reports, 16, (2026).

VanderWeele, T. J. et. al. “The Global Flourishing Study: Study profile and initial results on flourishing”, Nature Mental Health, 3(6) (2025) pp. 636–653.

Does human perfectibility pose a problem?

 

This essay was prompted by my reading of John Passmore’s book, The Perfectibility of Man, which was first published in 1969. 

I read the book mainly because of James M. Buchanan’s suggestion that “it remains the most definitive work on the history of ideas” relating to the extent to which classical liberalism depends on some presumption that man is perfectible. Buchanan made that suggestion at the beginning of a chapter entitled “Classical liberalism and the perfectibility of man”, in his book Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative (2005). Buchanan argued that although classical liberalism does not depend on people being especially "good" in a conventional sense, there is nevertheless a presumption of human perfectibility in classical liberalism. He argued that classical liberalism requires that sufficient persons (i) prefer to govern themselves and not be dependent upon others; (ii) respect the person and property of others; (iii) eschew attempts to implement impractical visions of utopian perfectionism; and (iv) be willing to defend the political institutions of liberal society against its enemies.

I had another reason for reading The Perfectibility of Man. As an Australian interested in Aristotle’s view of human perfectibility, I felt that I should by now have read a book on this topic by a distinguished philosopher who was my compatriot.

The book was enjoyable to read and I learned a lot from it. However, I disagree with the author’s assessment of Aristotle’s application of teleology to individual flourishing. It seems to me that Passmore’s view that that “there is something more than a little strange” in “identifying perfection with the realization of potentialities” is not consistent with the view he expresses at the end of the book that humans “are capable of more than they have ever so far achieved”.

I will return to that point later in this essay. Meanwhile, I will briefly outline the scope and content of Passmore’s book.

Passmore’s history of ideas on perfectibility

Passmore discusses the long history of ideas about the perfectibility of humans from Ancient Greece and Rome to the 1960s. He discusses the differing views of Christians over the last 2000 years as well as views associated with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the influence of social action, scientific progress and natural evolution.

The following paragraph, referring to the views of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), summarizes the themes of the book:

“To an extraordinary degree, then, Teilhard built into a single system almost all the main forms of perfectibilism which we have so far distinguished from one another. He was a mystic: perfection consists in union with God. He was a Christian: perfection depends on Christ’s working in man through evolution. He was a metaphysician: perfection consists in the development to its final form of that consciousness     which is present, according to Teilhard, even in elementary electrons. He believed in perfection through science: scientific research is, in his eyes, the prototype of “working with God.” He believed in perfection through social change: men are to be perfected through their participation in a society infused with love. He believed that Christianity shows us in what perfection consists: the New Testament, and especially Paul, reveal to us the nature of that final unity in which evolution must finally come to rest; the Incarnation, the sacrifice of the Mass, symbolize the unity of the material and the spiritual. He believed that science can demonstrate that humanity is moving towards such a perfection. He was Pelagian in his constant emphasis on human effort; he was anti-Pelagian in so far as he argued that God’s grace is essential if mankind is to achieve its final perfection. If Teilhard had not existed, it would almost have been necessary to invent him, in order to weave together our diverse themes.”

Towards the end of the book, it becomes obvious that Passmore is particularly concerned about the tyrannical outcomes of government attempts to implement utopian ideas relating to human perfectibility.

I will now turn to the point on which I disagree with Passmore.

Aristotle’s teleology

Passmore notes that, according to Aristotle, “potential is incomplete, formless, imperfect”. That implies “the actual is ‘perfect,’ then, in so far as it is the realization of, or the giving form to, a potentiality”. He then comments:

“But there is something more than a little strange in thus identifying perfection with the realization of potentialities. Suppose a man is potentially a liar. When he actualizes that potentiality, has he thereby perfected himself? At this point, it is important to recall that the general concept of perfection does not have written into it any suggestion of moral excellence. A man can be a perfect scoundrel or a perfect idiot just as he can be a perfect saint; he can commit a perfect crime, be a perfect forger, or have a “perfectly rotten time of it.” But, as we have already pointed out, when we speak of “perfectibility,” as distinct from perfection simpliciter, the situation is different; to assert that man is perfectible is to assert that he can become, in some sense taken to be absolute, a better person. To the extent to which an analysis of perfection is directed towards helping us to answer the question whether human beings are, or are not, perfectible, it must not allow the response: “they are perfectible all right: there are plenty of men who are potential villains and who actualize that potentiality perfectly.” (p.14)

It seems to me that Aristotle’s perception of individual human perfectibility does have a suggestion of moral excellence written into it. As Passmore acknowledges, Aristotle saw the good for man, as “an activity of soul in accordance with goodness”. In that context he notes that Aristotle argues that the human good consists in a life of contemplation.

However, Aristotle suggests in Book I of the Ethics that the good of man consists in our living in accordance with practical wisdom. In his book Rational Man - in which the passage quoted in the epigraph appears - Henry Veatch comes out strongly in support of the latter view.

Veatch explains that from an Aristotelian viewpoint, a person who is honest, courageous or temperate “will not be one who has merely been conditioned to follow unthinkingly certain approved patterns of behavior. He will be one who has learned to let his choices and preferences be determined by such knowledge and understanding as he may have, rather than to proceed simply from chance feelings and impulses of the moment or from long established but mechanical habits of response.” (p. 74-5)  

In his Preface to the 2003 edition of Rational Man, Douglas Rasmussen makes the point that “when Veatch spoke of how to “perfect” oneself, he did not mean that one should become Godlike, immune to degeneration, or incapable of harm. Rather it is to fulfil those potentialities and capacities that makes one fully human.”

Passmore’s bottom line

Passmore concludes that “perfectibilism is dehumanizing”:

“To achieve perfection in any of its classical senses, as so many perfectibilists have admitted, it would first be necessary to cease to be human, to become godlike, to rise above the human condition.”

However, the concept of perfectibility endorsed by Neo-Aristotelians such as Veatch and Rasmussen certainly doesn’t require humans to become godlike.

And Passmore’s final paragraph suggests to me that there is little difference between his views on perfectibility and those of the Neo-Aristotelians mentioned above:

“In spite of these reflections, which might lead us to reject perfectibilism in any of its forms, it is very hard to shake off the feeling that man is capable of becoming something much superior to what he now is. This feeling, if it is interpreted in the manner of the more commonsensical Enlighteners, is not in itself irrational. There is certainly no guarantee that men will ever be any better than they now are; their future is not, as it were, underwritten by Nature. Nor is there any device, whether skilful government, or education, which is certain to ensure the improvement of man’s condition. To that extent the hopes of the developmentalists or the governmentalists or the educators must certainly be abandoned. There is not the slightest ground for believing, either, with the anarchist, that if only the State could be destroyed and men could start afresh, all would be well. But we know from our own experience, as teachers or parents, that individual human beings can come to be better than they once were, given care, and that wholly to despair of a child or a pupil is to abdicate what is one’s proper responsibility. We know, too, that in the past men have made advances, in science, in art, in affection. Men, almost certainly, are capable of more than they have ever so far achieved. But what they achieve, or so I have suggested, will be a consequence of their remaining anxious, passionate, discontented human beings.” (p. 258)

Conclusion

This essay was prompted by my reading of John Passmore’s book, The Perfectibility of Man.

Passmore makes a strong case that government attempts to implement utopian ideas about human perfectibility result in tyrannical outcomes.

In my view, he also offers a persuasive argument that perfectibilism is dehumanizing when it is approached from the perspective of attempting to rise above the human condition - to become godlike.

However, I disagree with Passmore’s view of Aristotle’s application of teleology to individual flourishing. Passmore suggests that because the general concept of perfection does not have written into it any suggestion of moral excellence, it is possible for some people to actualize their potential perfectly by becoming villains. My response is that Aristotle’s understanding of human perfectibility does have a suggestion of moral excellence written into it. In support, I also refer to Henry Veatch’s view of the link between virtuous behaviour and the exercise of practical wisdom.

Nevertheless, after considering Passmore’s bottom line about the possibility for greater human achievement, I conclude that his view that perfectibilism is dehumanizing does not necessarily apply to Neo-Aristotelian perfectibilists. It certainly doesn’t apply to those of us who maintain that seeking to perfect oneself is about becoming “fully human”, rather than godlike.

What was wrong with the Washington Consensus?

 

Just as I was reading the final chapters of William Easterly’s book, Violent Saviours: The West, the Rest, and Capitalism Without Consent, the United States government abducted the president of Venezuela to stand trial on drug charges in New York. I was pleased to see Nicolás Maduro facing justice, even if for the wrong reasons, but at the time of writing it remains to be seen whether the U.S. actions will advance the economic and personal freedom of Venezuelans.

 In the light of recent developments, Easterly’s conclusion seem to me to be excessively optimistic. He states:

“Adam Smith’s prophesied movement of “nations into some sort of respect for the rights of one another” had been partially fulfilled. The relation of the West to the Rest, previously based on coercion, was now based mainly on consent.”

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the U.S. seems to me to be behaving like a colonial power. President Trump makes no secret of the fact that he is more interested in control of additional territory, oil, and other resources than in promoting respect for human rights, free trade, and the liberal international order.

Apologists for President Trump can claim, with some justification, that big powers have always swung their weight around in their own interests despite their rhetoric supporting the liberal international order. Nevertheless, public support for international norms of behaviour has hitherto signaled a willingness to be held to account publicly for breach of those norms.

 Easterly qualifies his statement that the relation of the West and the Rest is now based mainly on consent:

“The trend toward freedom is neither inexorable nor irreversible. As of this writing, new threats to freedom have emerged with proposed increases in US tariffs and possible restrictions on foreign students. It’s a little premature to declare the attainment of a liberal paradise.”

With the benefit of observation of recent events, however, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the world is currently moving rapidly away from the ideal of relations between nations being based on consent rather than coercion. It is possible, nevertheless, that oppressed people in some countries will manage to achieve more economic and personal freedom over the next few years. The best we can hope for is that before too long Washington will once again embrace the ideal that relations between nations should be based on consent rather than coercion.

Before I discuss Easterly’s view of the Washington Consensus, I will briefly outline what Violent Saviours is about.

The West’s conflicted view of the Rest

Violent Saviours offers a historical account of the conflict between the duelling visions that have influenced the conduct of Western nations toward the rest of the world since the 17^th and 18^th centuries. On the one hand, there are the liberal ideas of consent, self-determination, and equality that make possible positive-sum gains from commerce between groups and individuals. On the other hand, there are the opposing illiberal ideas of coercion, paternalism and racism that yielded a negative sum world of conquest.

Adam Smith was a leading advocate of liberal ideas and a critic of many aspects of colonialism. However, some well-intentioned Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Condorcet) offered support for the “Development Right of Conquest”. Condorcet sought to justify conquest as offering the hope of eventually “civilizing” the locals.

Over the period from 1776 to 1865, the liberals were mainly on the losing side. They were unable to prevent the West’s adoption of illiberal policies such as colonial conquest and population removal (in countries such as the U.S, and Australia). However, liberals had some victories during that period; most notably, they were able to bring about abolition of the slave trade and of slavery in the United States.

Easterly suggests that over the period from 1865 to 1945 most economists abandoned liberal morality: “Commerce expands but without moral constraints on plunder”. The regression of freedom culminated in World War II, during which liberalism had to fight for its survival.

The period since 1945 has seen the partial victory of liberal ideas with the end of colonialism and a surge in commerce which has partially restored agency to people in the former colonies. Easterly notes that some economists – notably Milton Friedman, P. T. Bauer, and Amartya Sen – revived the idea of individual freedom as “an end in itself”.

It is possible to quibble with some aspects of that account, but I think the important point to focus on is the current state of the conflict between the duelling visions. Easterly writes:

“Yet the legacy of the past is still here. While obviously not equating modern development efforts with slavery, genocide, and colonialism, the question remains of what violations of consent today in the name of progress should be out of bounds.”

That provides the context in which I would like to consider the Washington Consensus.

 The Washington Consensus

The Washington Consensus was the term John Williamson, an economist, invented in 1989 to describe the set of policy reforms that the US Treasury, the World Bank and the IMF believed would be good for Latin American countries. The ten propositions of the Washington Consensus combined fiscal discipline with selective deregulation. They were broadly pro-market but did not entail a vastly diminished role for government. As an advocate of a greater measure of economic freedom than required by the ten points in the Washington Consensus, I recall being bemused to see opponents equate it with “neoliberalism” and “market fundamentalism”. John Williamson had a different reaction. As he discussed in the paper from which I obtained the epigraph, he was concerned that the term was often being used to refer to a more radical pro-market view than he had intended.

The policy ideas in the Washington Consensus were certainly applicable beyond Latin American countries and were not confined to economists in Washington DC. Those ideas were widely accepted by economists with expertise in economic policy in many different countries. I think they are still widely accepted by economists today.

As I was reading Easterly’s discussion of the Washington Consensus, the thought crossed my mind that the era in which it held sway was actually the high point in economic development policy as advocated by the World Bank. The Washington consensus seemed to show more recognition of the importance of economic freedom than subsequent policy approaches emerging from Washington.

One of the problems that Easterly mentions is that many observers thought that pro-market reforms were only desirable if they produced immediate economic gains. The reforms led to anti-globalization protests because they didn’t have an immediate positive impact on economic growth and were often associated with worsening of poverty. As time went on, however, “there was more evidence of growth turnarounds and poverty reduction correlated with movements away from extreme state control”.

As I was reading this, I tried to recollect what I had written in the 1990s about the adjustment process following an expansion of economic freedom. I wrote about some aspects of that question in an article entitled “The New Zealand Model of Economic Reform: A Review” (published in: Agenda: A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1997), ANU Press). My work suggested that the lack of clear evidence of economic benefits in some countries that had undertaken economic reforms in the 1980s could be attributed partly to the time required for new policy directions to become embedded and for adjustment to occur: 

“Profound changes in behaviour, including changes in the willingness of individuals to learn new skills and business practices, are required as people respond to the incentives that policy reforms provide.  It takes time even for the most innovative firms and individuals to accept that new market incentives are likely to be sustained and to develop and implement new strategies.  Widespread adoption requires sufficient time for these new strategies to become demonstrably successful.”

I am pleased that I wrote that even though I missed an important point that Easterly makes. He suggests that the emphasis “on material results alone – on both sides of the debate – neglected Sen’s and others’ arguments for freedom as an end in itself”.

I don’t see freedom as an “end in itself” – freedom is necessary because human flourishing is an individualized and self-directed process. What I think Easterly means is that institutional freedom would be no less desirable if individuals chose to use it ways that made no contribution to economic growth e.g. by increasing the amount of time they spent on leisure activities.

Easterly also suggests that the manner in which foreign governments were encouraged to adopt Washington Consensus polices was problematic:

“Low and middle-income countries could get badly needed loans from the World Bank and IMF only if they agreed to reforms decreed by Bank and Fund staff. The fatal combination of foreign advisors with some coercion would keep discrediting promarket recommendations made by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1990s, especially for Africa, Latin America, and Russia.”

A few pages on, however, the author notes that “the association of liberal reforms with a Washington-imposed Consensus did not turn out to be fatal”. He follows that observation with a long list of “homegrown reformers” who have pursued pro-market reforms. (I have reproduced the list here.)

Unfortunately, Easterly’s list of reformers does not include Javier Milei, president of Argentina. It was probably compiled too soon for that to be possible.

Now that I have mentioned Javier Milei it is worth noting that the U.S. government offered a $20 billion bailout for Argentina prior to the country’s recent legislative elections. The offer was apparently made with strings attached — namely, that the funds would be available only if Milei’s party won the election.

It seems to me that if the U.S. president were to promote a general policy of assisting those low-income countries whose political leaders enthusiastically expand economic and personal freedom, he might be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.   

Conclusion

William Easterly’s book, Violent Saviours, offers an insightful account of the conflict between liberal and coercive views of economic development since the 17^th and 18^th centuries. He suggests that the legacy of the past is still with us because development economists and policy makers are still confronted by the question of what violations of consent should be out of bounds.

That provided the context in which I considered Easterly’s views of what was wrong with the Washinton Consensus – the moderately pro-market economic policies advocated by the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank, and the IMF during the 1990s. Easterly is clearly sympathetic to espousal of pro-market policies. However, he makes a strong case that such policies should be advocated to promote economic freedom rather than to promote “material results alone”.

The view that Easterly presents is consistent with the idea that liberty is desirable because it provides opportunities for individuals to flourish in the manner they choose.

Part VIII: Summary and Conclusions

This is the final essay of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

——-

The purpose of this series of essays has been to explore the contribution that political entrepreneurship makes to human flourishing. A central issue is whether political entrepreneurship has a role to play in promoting a political and legal order more conducive to human flourishing.  

Each essay in this series has sought to address a question relevant to assessing the impact of political entrepreneurship on freedom and flourishing. The main points that emerge from each essay are as follows:

1. This series of essays has focused on institutions related to liberty because those institutions are strongly linked to human flourishing. The links between freedom and flourishing are conceptual as well as empirical. Human flourishing is inherently individualized and self-directed. Liberty is necessary to enable individuals to flourish in different ways without the flourishing of some individuals or groups being given structural preference over that of others.
2. At a national level, prevailing culture offers only a partial explanation of differences in economic and personal freedom levels. In several countries, political entrepreneurs and their ideologies have played an obvious historical role in bringing about economic and personal freedom levels that are substantially lower than predicted by underlying cultural values.
3. Political entrepreneurship is similar in some ways to other forms of entrepreneurship. Don Lavoie’s suggestion that entrepreneurs play an interpretive role in complex systems is applicable to all kinds of entrepreneurship. Political entrepreneurs respond to public discourse by using it as a basis for policy innovation.
4. Political entrepreneurship is largely about obtaining and using political power. Political entrepreneurs face incentives to exploit the misconceptions and irrational preferences of voters by making deals with narrow interest groups at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Innovators among them have incentives to focus on niches in the marketplace of ideas that established parties don’t satisfy. However, political entrepreneurs who engage overtly in interest group politics are not always able to overcome opposition from other politicians who see benefits in seeking to serve broader community interests.
5. Many political entrepreneurs are motivated by a desire to pursue economic, environmental and social objectives that are widely supported in the broader community. However, even modest attempts to steer the market system toward desired economic objectives often obstruct the price signals that convey information from consumers to producers about the most advantageous use of resources. Pursuit of social and environmental objectives is usually a matter of “muddling through” in the face of unintended consequences.
6. Historically, the path-dependence of social norms has played an important role in slowing the emergence of interest group politics in the long-standing democracies. People were once more reluctant to become dependent upon government or to use the political system to obtain benefits at the expense of others than they are today. The erosion of those norms has led to increasing constraints on economic freedom, a decline in dynamism, and rapid growth in public debt. Path-dependence of social norms now poses a difficult challenge for political entrepreneurs seeking to promote policies that are more conducive to freedom and flourishing.
7. The idea that autocrats have sometimes helped to promote greater economic freedom may not be entirely fanciful but empirical evidence certainly doesn’t support the idea that democracy, and the personal freedom associated with it, is incompatible with high levels of economic freedom. It is clear, nevertheless, that the long-standing democracies are experiencing difficulties in maintaining economic freedom in the face of interest group politics. Reform-minded political entrepreneurs in those countries have a great deal to learn from previous reform experiences. The problem of ensuring adoption of government policies that more consistently advance economic and personal freedom cannot be reduced to the question of how to elect better political entrepreneurs to national leadership positions. Institutional change is a complex process involving social movements, media organizations, and interactions between individual citizens, as well as local and national politics.

 In the preface I suggested that it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship at this time because there seems to be increasing support in liberal democracies for leaders who propose rule changes which are likely to have detrimental impacts on prospects for freedom and flourishing. In this series of essays, I have attempted to shed some light on the ways authoritarian leaders seek to appeal to the public but have not attempted to assess the gravity of current threats to liberty.

My concluding message for those who perceive that liberty is under threat is that they should emphasize the potential for positive relationships between democracy and human flourishing. Perhaps the most important thing I have learned in writing these essays is that my previous tendency toward cynicism about democracy was not entirely appropriate. If we want institutions that are more supportive of freedom and flourishing to become entrenched, we will need more supportive citizens engaged in discursive processes at all levels of society – that means more democracy, not less. 

Further Reading

Please see the following post which offers suggestions for further reading.

Part VII: What kind of political entrepreneurship is required?

 This essay is one of a series exploring the topic: What impact does political entrepreneurship have on freedom and flourishing? The series commenced with a Preface which provides a synopsis of the series and explains why I think it is important to obtain a better understanding of political entrepreneurship.

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Can strong political leadership bring about institutional change leading to greater economic and personal freedom?  That idea is easy to challenge. It recalls the oft quoted passage by Lord Acton:

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority” (Acton 1887). 

Yet, powerful leadership has attractions to many citizens. I don’t think the question of whether strong political leadership could be consistent with greater economic and personal freedom should be dismissed out of hand.

Restoring order

The attraction of strong leadership is most understandable in chaotic situations where social order has broken down and lives, liberty and property are threatened by groups that have resorted to violence to pursue nefarious ends. Under such circumstances there may be grounds to hope that a strong leader will be able to restore order and protect the rights of individuals.

As Vincent Ostrom pointed out, the ubiquity of coercion means that order and organization in human societies depends upon a Faustian bargain involving use of organized force (Ostrom 1997, p.121). As explained by Paul Aligica and Peter Boettke:

“The implication is that social order and its institutional dynamics are perceived as shaped by and operating under the shadow of the ongoing tension between the threat of chaos and the threat of tyranny” (Aligica and Boettke 2009, p.61).

Benevolent despotism

Some of the best advice for despots who wish to promote freedom and flourishing was provided by Lao Tzu:

“Govern the state by being straight forward; wage war by being crafty; but win the empire by not being meddlesome” (Tzu 1963, LVII p.64).

Aristotle’s politics is somewhat more challenging to libertarians, but Fred D. Miller makes a strong case that it is not anachronistic to attribute to Aristotle a concept of individual rights and support for a moderate degree of liberalism. (Miller 1995, pp.373-378).

Robert Faulkner observes that Aristotle ranks greatness of soul as the "crown" needed to perfect all the virtues, including justice. He writes:

 “Aristotle calls greatness of soul a kosmos. It is an ornament of good character that is also an exalting order: an ordering heightened by an awareness of the grand activities such a soul calls for and is owed” (Faulkner 2007, loc. 250/3375). 

According to Faulkner:

“Aristotle's diagnosis comes to this: the great-souled man is at once drawn above humanity and drawn to humanity. He exhibits his superiority by aiding his fellows, and yet his wish is less to aid them than to avoid being or appearing dependent on them” (Faulkner 2007, loc. 565/3375).

Faulkner suggests that while Nicomachean Ethics seems to imply that greatness of the soul is a desirable attribute of political leaders, Aristotle moderates that view elsewhere in his writings. In Ethics, Aristotle suggests that greatness, especially great power, is overrated: “it is possible for one who is not a ruler of land and sea to perform noble action” (Faulkner 2007, loc. 692/3375).

In more recent times, Max Weber’s argument that effective leaders must have charisma may be relevant in considering the potential role of leaders in restoring liberty. Weber argued that effective leaders must have a charismatic form of authority because that is the only form of authority capable of overcoming the constraints of organisation, legality and tradition:

“Devotion to the charisma of the prophet, or the leader in war, or to the great demagogue in the ecclesia or in parliament, means that the leader is personally recognized as the innerly 'called' leader of men. Men do not obey him by virtue of tradition or statute, but because they believe in him” (Weber 1946, p.79).

Weber argued that charismatic authority is required for leaders to be effective in their struggle against the impersonal forces of bureaucratization. It tends to appear in moments of crisis, when the leader performs a ‘miracle’ for a group that feels otherwise impotent and deeply threatened. Xavier Márquez suggests that Weber's conception of charismatic authority allows some demagogues to play a genuinely democratic role in modern societies when viewed through contemporary theories of representation (Márquez 2024).

Thus far, the discussion suggests that it is not possible to rule out the possibility that a benevolent despot could promote freedom and flourishing if he or she wished to establish supportive institutions and had appropriate leadership qualities. However, that seems unlikely to be a frequent occurrence.

 Does autocracy support economic freedom?

The point was made earlier in this series (Part II) that it is easier to identify individual political leaders who have contributed to low or falling freedom levels than those who have contributed to high or rising freedom levels. That is because political entrepreneurship tends to be less focused on individual leaders in countries where governments have greater regard for individual liberty. 

Nevertheless, the idea that autocrats have sometimes helped produce better outcomes may not be entirely fanciful. There may be some substance lying behind folklore that attributes improvements in economic freedom to autocrats such as Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Park Chung Hee in South Korea, Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan and Augusto Pinochet in Chile.

However, even if it can be shown that in some instances autocrats have fostered greater economic freedom, and that this has been followed by improvements in personal freedom, it does not necessarily follow that a period of autocracy was necessary or justified. People in the countries concerned are better placed than foreign observers to make judgements about the use of force by autocrats in particular circumstances, but the idea that autocrats are more likely to make positive contributions to economic growth than democratic leaders does not stand up to scrutiny. William Easterly tested the proposition by relating economic growth outcomes to the periods during which autocratic and other leaders were in office. He found that “leaders matter very little” (Easterly 2013, pp. 308-26).

There is also strong empirical evidence that democracy, and the personal freedom associated with it, is compatible with high levels of economic freedom.

Which democracies are supporting economic freedom?

Vincent Geloso and Alex Tabarrok have assembled evidence that democracy and economic freedom are highly correlated. Except for Singapore and Hong Kong there are no jurisdictions with high levels of economic freedom that are not also democracies (Geloso and Tabarrok 2025, p.116). Countries which have experienced the greatest democratization (Peru, Taiwan, Portugal, Spain, and Greece) have also experienced improvements in economic freedom. There have also been substantial improvements in economic freedom in the countries of Eastern Europe which experienced democratization following the collapse of communism in 1989 (Geloso and Tabarrok 2025, pp. 125-8). Geloso and Tabarrok provide some strong arguments to explain the correlation between democracy and economic freedom that they observe.

It seems to me, however, that none of the explanations offered for the observed correlation between democracy and economic freedom provide grounds to allay concerns, discussed in the preceding essay, about the future of economic freedom in the long-standing democracies.

Economic freedom levels are beginning to slip in some of the long-standing democracies. While many of the newer democracies have been experiencing increased dynamism, the increasing entanglement of government, industry and community organisations in the long-standing democracies has been associated with a decline in dynamism.

There is not much evidence that either the progressive or conservative sides of politics in the long-standing democracies are currently offering policies to advance economic freedom. The progressive side of politics is tending to pursue social and environmental agendas without regard for their impact on economic freedom, or growth in productivity or incomes. The conservative side of politics is tending to pursue economic nationalist agendas without regard for their impact on economic freedom, or growth in productivity of incomes.

Experience suggests that substantial political support for economic freedom will return only after economic crises threaten to cause widespread misery. That raises the issue of what kind of political entrepreneurship might help to make economic freedom more secure in the long-established democracies.

Learning from previous reform experience

Some prominent political leaders in democracies have been able to pursue reforms directed toward expansion of economic freedom. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan pursued such reforms in the USA, as Margaret Thatcher did in Britain. The reforms currently being pursued by Javier Milei in Argentina seem to be similarly motivated, but at the time of writing it is too soon to judge how highly Milei’s reforms will rate in terms of broad libertarian criteria. The economic problems confronting the United States and Britain in the 1970s and 80s provided the context in which political leaders could initiate substantial changes in the direction of economic and social policies. That is even more true of the economic circumstances in Argentina prior to Milei’s election.

The reform efforts by Reagan and Thatcher can be viewed as examples of heroic leadership which increased economic freedom. However, heroic leadership of that kind is not solely the prerogative of presidents and prime ministers. Similar reform efforts in New Zealand and Australia were led by government ministers responsible for economic policy, Roger Douglas and Paul Keating respectively, with prime ministers adopting a facilitating role.

Political leaders can rarely claim to be the authors of their reform strategies. Policy development that has led to greater economic freedom has drawn heavily on the ideas of prominent academics including Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, on policy analysis in think tanks and on contributions of a few journalists who understand the issues.

In some instances, advisers within government bureaucracies have also played an important role in policy development. Roger Kerr, who held the position of Executive Director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable following a career in the New Zealand Treasury, provided a highly relevant comment about the need for advisors to focus their advice on their fields of expertise rather than on politics:

“Economists of all people should be conscious that the performance of bureaucrats in trying to pick winners and losers in the policy-advice market is likely to be as unimpressive as in the industrial domain – and for much the same reasons, namely lack of information and incentives. Perceived policy constraints are not always immutable. They can be shifted by reasoned analysis and well-constructed strategies for policy change, developed by interaction between political managers and technical advisers. Second-guessing political reactions can lead to narrowing of policy options and does less than justice, in recent New Zealand circumstances at least, to the intelligence of a number of politicians, on both sides of the political fence, who have been more aware of the gravity of New Zealand’s economic problems and prepared to tell the story like it is than many of their advising bureaucrats” (Kerr 1987, pp. 144-45).

Alf Rattigan is a prime example of a public servant who played a major innovative role in driving economic reforms in Australia.  Rattigan was chairman of Australia’s Tariff Board from 1963 to 1974 when it was replaced by the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC). He stayed on as chairman of the IAC until 1976, when he retired with ill health. Rattigan used his influence in those positions to play a pivotal role in terminating Australia’s long history of industry protection, which in turn, helped open Australia to the global forces that drove further market-based economic reforms. In a lecture presented in 2016, Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large for The Australian and Australia’s most scholarly journalist, outlined the main elements that contributed to the success of Rattigan’s reform efforts (Kelly 2016). One element of Rattigan’s success was his integrity in taking seriously his legal responsibility as chairman of an independent statutory authority, in the face of opposition from the government of the day which believed that he should “accept the overall tariff policy of the government as given” and work within that framework. Another element was the ability of his professional staff to draw upon the methodology for measurement of effective rates of protection developed by Professor Max Corden. A small group of economically literate journalists played a crucial role in giving publicity to analyses demonstrating the costs of protection. Some groups, including farmers and miners, recognized that their members were disadvantaged by high levels of protection provided to the manufacturing sector and formed a free trade lobby. David Trebeck, an influential figure in the National Farmers Federation, said: “We fired the ‘bullets’ made by the IAC.” More politicians because advocates of free trade and political leaders eventually showed leadership by recognizing that “good policy is good politics”.

Unfortunately, looking back today on the economic reform efforts of the 1980s and 90s, it is apparent that the important reforms in the rules of the game made at that time have not become deeply entrenched. Political leaders obtained sufficient electoral support to implement market-friendly policies, but there does not seem to be much evidence that members of the public improved their understanding of the benefits of free markets in any of the countries in which reforms were undertaken.

Mass movements

The problem of ensuring adoption of government policies that more consistently advance economic and personal freedom is not merely a question of how to elect political entrepreneurs with their hearts in the right place to national leadership positions. Experience has shown that the longevity of reforms cannot be guaranteed even when they are supported by a strong coalition of interest groups and result in more favourable economic opportunities for a large majority of the population.

In recent years, centre-left and centre-right governments which have followed policies that are broadly consistent with relatively high levels of economic and personal freedom have become vulnerable to competition from populist political entrepreneurs who prophesy catastrophic environmental and social consequences if their radical policy proposals are not followed. Populist policy innovators on the left and right sides of politics tend to promote vastly different fears, and to offer vastly different policies. However, one common feature of those populist policy innovators is their attempt to exploit a systematic anti-market bias among electors.

The pertinent question is how the anti-market bias of public opinion can be reduced. History suggests that this has occurred to some extent in the past via complex processes involving, among other things, political entrepreneurship in social movements. For example, Joel Mokyr notes that the move toward free trade in Britain in the first half of the 19^th century involved the influence of post-Smithian political economy, the growing political power of the new industrial elite, and debates about income distribution and food supply. He writes:

“The careers of Victorian free-traders such as Richard Cobden and John Bright and the liberal Tories of the post-1815 era represent the kind of mixture of economic interests and liberal ideology that eventually secured victory for free trade” (Mokyr 2009, p. 153).

Mikayla Novak has noted the importance of entrepreneurship in propelling social movements to extend the effective domain of freedom. In that context she notes that “people such as William Lloyd Garrison, Emmeline Pankhurst, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Lech Walesa, and Nelson Mandela” played an important role in “opposing unsatisfactory institutions and situations” although they, themselves, were not necessarily classical liberals by orientation” (Novak 2021, p. 45).

Is it possible that at some time in the future a broad social movement promoting classical liberal views could become sufficiently influential to ensure that children are offered as much tuition about the spontaneous order of the free market as they are currently offered about the workings of ecological systems in the natural environment? If that ever happens it will occur because of the actions of individuals.  As Edward W. Younkins has suggested, the task of building a free society depends on individual advocates of liberty who are “dedicated to preserving and strengthening the ideological and moral foundations of a free society”. Younkins notes that it is especially through the “numerous interactions with individuals” during their everyday lives that advocates of liberty can “transmit the freedom philosophy to the general public” (Younkins 2011, pp. 168-69).

Please see the final part of this series: Summary and Conclusions

References

Acton, Lord (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton) Acton-Creighton Correspondence (1887) Acton-Creighton Correspondence | Online Library of Liberty

Aligica, Paul Dragos and Peter J. Boettke, Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (Routledge, 2009).

Easterly, William, The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (Basic Books, 2013).

Faulkner, Robert, The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (Yale University Press, 2007).

Geloso, Vincent and Alex Tabarrok. “Two Peas in a Pod: Democracy and Capitalism”, in Scott C. Miller and Sidney M. Milkis (eds.) Can Democracy and Capitalism be Reconciled (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Kelly, Paul., “Economic Reform: A lost cause or merely in eclipse”, Alf Rattigan Lecture (The Australian and New Zealand School of Government, 2016).

Kerr, Roger, “Ideas, Interests, Experience and the Economic Adviser”, World Economy, 10, no. 2 (1987) pp. 131-54.

Márquez, Xavier, “Max Weber, demagogy and charismatic representation”, European Journal of Political Theory (2024).

Miller, Fred D., Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics (Clarendon Press, 1995).

Mokyr, Joel, The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700 – 1850 (Yale University Press, 2009).

Novak, Mikayla, Freedom in Contention: Social Movements and Liberal Political Economy (Lexington Books, 2021).

Ostrom, Vincent., The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies (The University of Michigan Press, 1997).

Tzu, Lao., Tao Te Ching, D.C. Lau translation (Penguin Books, 1963).

Weber, Max, “Politics as a Vocation”, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited and translated by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946).

Younkins, Edward W. Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society, Towards a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Austrian Economics, and Ayn Rand’s Objectivism (University Press of America, 2011).