الحرية الاقتصادية Economic freedom هي تعني تمكن الناس من حتى يتخذوا قراراتهم الاقتصادية بأنفسهم. وهذه الحرية تضم حق الملكية، واستعمالها وجني الربح منها. فالعمال أحرار في اختيار وظائفهم، وللناس حرية ادخار المال واستثماره بمحض إرادتهم. This is a term used in economic and policy debates as well as in the philosophy of economics. One approach to economic freedom comes from the liberal tradition emphasizing free markets, free trade, and private property under free enterprise. Another approach to economic freedom extends the welfare economics study of individual choice, with greater economic freedom coming from a larger set of possible choices. Other conceptions of economic freedom include freedom from want and the freedom to engage in collective bargaining.

The liberal free-market viewpoint defines economic liberty as the freedom to produce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. This is embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative. There are several indices of economic freedom that attempt to measure free market economic freedom. Based on these rankings, correlative studies have found higher economic growth to be correlated with higher scores on the country rankings.^{[بحاجة لمصدر]} With regards to other measures such as equality, corruption, political and social violence and their correlation to economic freedom, it has been argued that the economic freedom indices conflate unrelated policies and policy outcomes to conceal negative correlations between economic growth and economic freedom in some subcomponents.

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مؤسسات الحرية الاقتصادية

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حرية العمل والتجارة Freedom to work and trade

نظرية في السياسة الاقتصادية في الغرب تتضمن عدم تدخُّل الحكومة في القرارات التي تقرُّها السوق التنافسية المفتوحة. وتشتمل هذه القرارات على وضع الأسعار والأجور ووضع الخيارات الأخرى التي تؤثِّر في بيع السلع والخدمات. واستنادًا إلى هذه النظرية،قد يكون العمال في أوج إنتاجهم، كماقد يكون أداء اقتصاد الدولة أكثر كفاءة، حيث يتمكَّن الناس من ملاحقة مصالحهم الاقتصادية الخاصة بحرية نسبية.

أصبح تعبير حرية العمل والتجارة متداولاً وشعبيًا من قِبل مجموعة من الكتَّاب الفرنسيين يُدْعَوْن الفيزيوقراطيين، أتباع الممضى الاقتصادي السياسي الذين يؤمنون بحرية الصناعة والتجارة، خلال خمسينيات وثمانينيات القرن الثامن عشر. وكانت حكومات الكثير من الدول الأوروبية في ذلك الوقت تمارس سياسيات تعهد بـ المركانتيلية أوالتجارية، وتضمَّنت المركانتيلية أنظمة صارمة في مجالات الزراعة والصناعة والتجارة، كان هدفها الرئيسي زيادة معدل الصادرات على معدَّل الواردات. وأصر الفيزيوقراطيون على حتى فرض مثل هذه القيود يحول دون نموالتجارة.

حرية التعاقد

Freedom of contract is the right to choose one's contracting parties and to trade with them on any terms and conditions one sees fit. Contracts permit individuals to create their own enforceable legal rules, adapted to their unique situations. However, not all contracts need to be enforced by the state. For example, in the United States there is a large number of third-party arbitration tribunals which resolve disputes under private commercial law. Negatively understood, freedom of contract is freedom from government interference and from imposed value judgments of fairness. The notion of "freedom of contract" was given one of its most famous legal expressions in 1875 by Sir George Jessel MR:

[I]f there is one thing more than another public policy requires it is that men of full age and competent understanding shall have the utmost liberty of contracting, and that their contracts when entered into freely and voluntarily shall be held sacred and shall be enforced by courts of justice. Therefore, you have this paramount public policy to consider – that you are not lightly to interfere with this freedom of contract.

The doctrine of freedom of contract received one of its strongest expressions in the US Supreme Court case of Lochner v New York which struck down legal restrictions on the working hours of bakers.

الحرية الاقتصادية والسياسية

Some free market advocates argue that political and civil liberties have simultaneously expanded with market-based economies, and present empirical evidence to support the claim that economic and political freedoms are linked.

مؤشرات الحرية الاقتصادية

المسوح الحولية الحرية الاقتصادية في العالم (EFW) ومؤشر الحرية الاقتصادية (IEF) هما مؤشران يحاولان قياس درجة الحرية الاقتصادية في دول العالم. The EFW index, originally developed by Gwartney, Lawson and Block at the Fraser Institute was likely the most used in empirical studies as of 2000. The other major index, which was developed by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal appears superior for data work, although as it only goes back to 1995, it is less useful for historical comparisons.

انتقادات

The nature of economic freedom is often in dispute. Robert Lawson, the co-author of EFW, even acknowledges the potential shortcomings of freedom indices: "The purpose of the EFW index is to measure, no doubt imprecisely, the degree of economic freedom that exists." He likens the recent attempts of economists to measure economic freedom to the initial attempts of economists to measure GDP: "They [macroeconomists] were scientists who sat down to design, as best they could with the tools at hand, a measure of the current economic activity of the nation. Economic activity exists and their job was to measure it. Likewise economic freedom exists. It is a thing. We can define and measure it." Thus, it follows that some economists, socialists and anarchists contend that the existing indicators of economic freedom are too narrowly defined and should take into account a broader conception of economic freedoms.

Critics of the indices (e.g. Thom Hartmann) also oppose the inclusion of business-related measures like corporate charters and intellectual property protection. John Miller in Dollars & Sense has stated that the indices are "a poor barometer of either freedom more broadly construed or of prosperity." He argues that the high correlation between living standards and economic freedom as measured by IEF is the result of choices made in the construction of the index that guarantee this result. For example, the treatment of a large informal sector (common in poor countries) as an indicator of restrictive government policy, and the use of the change in the ratio of government spending to national income, rather than the level of this ratio. Hartmann argues that these choices cause the social democratic European countries to rank higher than countries where the government share of the economy is small but growing.

Economists Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs have separately noted that there appears to be little correlation between measured economic freedom and economic growth when the least free countries are disregarded, as indicated by the strong growth of the Chinese economy in recent years. Morris Altman found that there is a relatively large correlation between economic freedom and both per capita income and per capita growth. He argues that this is especially true when it comes to sub-indices relating to property rights and sound money, while he calls into question the importance of sub-indices relating to labor regulation and government size once certain threshold values are passed. John Miller further observes that Hong Kong and Singapore, both only "partially free" according to Freedom House, are leading countries on both economic freedom indices and casts doubt on the claim that measured economic freedom is associated with political freedom. However, according to the Freedom House, "there is a high and statistically significant correlation between the level of political freedom as measured by Freedom House and economic freedom as measured by the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation survey."

مجموعات الخيارات والحرية الاقتصادية

Amartya Sen and other economists consider economic freedom to be measured in terms of the set of economic choices available to individuals. Economic freedom is greater when individuals have more economic choices available – when, in some technical sense, the choice set of individuals expands.

الحرية الموجبة والحرية السالبة

The differences between alternative views of economic freedom have been expressed in terms of Isaiah Berlin's distinction between positive freedom and negative freedom. Classical liberals favour a focus on negative freedom as did Berlin himself. By contrast Amartya Sen argues for an understanding of freedom in terms of capabilities to pursue a range of goals. One measure which attempts to assess freedom in the positive sense is Goodin, Rice, Parpo, and Eriksson's measure of discretionary time, which is an estimate of how much time people have at their disposal during which they are free to choose the activities in which they participate, after taking into account the time they need to spend acquiring the necessities of life. In his book, Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman explains the preservation of freedom is the reason for limited and decentralized governments. It creates positive freedom within the society allowing for freedom of choice for an individual in a free society.

الحرية من العوز

Franklin D. Roosevelt included freedom from want in his Four Freedoms speech. Roosevelt stated that freedom from want "translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world".^{[بحاجة لمصدر]} In terms of US policy, Roosevelt's New Deal included economic freedoms such as freedom of trade union organisation, as well as a wide range of policies of government intervention and redistributive taxation aimed at promoting freedom from want.^{[بحاجة لمصدر]} Internationally, Roosevelt favored the policies associated with the Bretton Woods Agreement which fixed exchange rates and established international economic institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.^{[بحاجة لمصدر]}

Herbert Hoover saw economic freedom as a fifth freedom, which secures survival of Roosevelt's Four freedoms. He described economic freedom as freedom "for men to choose their own calling, to accumulate property in protection of their children and old age, [and] freedom of enterprise that does not injure others."

تاريخ

وضعت مجموعة من المفكرين يُدْعَوْن بالمدرسة الكلاسيكية البريطانية يترأسها الاقتصادي الاسكتلندي آدم سميث، تفسيرًا كاملاً لمبدأ نظرية حرية العمل والتجارة ودفاعًا عنها خلال سبعينيات القرن الثامن عشر وأربعينيات القرن التاسع عشر. واتى دعمُهم عندما توافَقَ مبدأ هذه النظرية مع حاجات تطوّر الاقتصاد الصناعي السريع وتلاءَم معه. وبدأ الاقتصاديون الكلاسيكيون بفرضية أنَّ تحفيزَ الأفراد أمرٌ تحركه المصلحة الذاتية. وأكدوا حتى الناس يخدمون مصالحهم الخاصة على أحسن وجه عندما يقدِّمون السلع والخدمات التي يحتاجها الآخرون، وأن التنافس في السوق المفتوحة، يشجِّع ويحرِّك الازدهار للجميع. لذا يجب حتىقد يكون دور الحكومة محدودًا في تنظيم الاقتصاد.

وقد أثَّرت نظرية حرية العمل والتجارة على الفكر والعمل الاقتصادي بشكل كبير خلال أوائل وأواسط القرن التاسع عشر. وقد وجه لهذه النظرية الكثير من الانتقادات هجرزت على فشلها في حل الكثير من المشاكل الاقتصادية والاجتماعية التي ظهرت. وبدأت حكومات الدول الصناعية تدريجيًا بتنظيم الأنشطة الاقتصادية عن كثب. كما بدأت هذه الحكومات بإصدار القوانين الهادفة إلى حل كثير من المشاكل الرئيسية كالفقر والبطالة. ويدعوبعض الاقتصاديين المعاصرين إلى العودة إلى سياسات هذه النظرية. ويعتبر الاقتصادي الأمريكي ميلتون فريدمان واحدًا من أكبر القياديين المؤيدين لمثل هذه السياسات.

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الهامش

المصادر

الموسوعة المعهدية الكاملة

قراءات أخرى

• Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
• Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
• Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
• Ludwig von Mises, Economic Freedom and Interventionism
• Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom

وصلات خارجية

• Economic Freedom by Robert A. Lawson of the Fraser Institute at the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
• John Miller, "Free, Free at Last" in Dollars & Sense magazine
• The Protection Of Economic Rights & Freedoms

نطقب:Neoliberalism نطقب:Liberalism نطقب:Liberty