Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom

112 • Towards a Worldwide Index of Human Freedom
Individual variables
Drug access
Restrictions on “recreational” drugs, whether a good or a bad thing, are
freedom limiting and should be included in the index. The authors in
our discussions agree with this but have been unable to find variables on
access/restrictions on recreational drugs.
Relationships
Under “relationships,” the freedom to form a homosexual relationship
may be over weighted, representing one half of all the variables for this
section.
Foreigners
In almost all nations (Gulf states being notable outliers), the percentage
of foreigners in a population is quite small, so why does hostility to
foreigners get its own variable? 2 Obviously “hostility” towards internal
ethnic or religious groups will be much more important in most nations.
Perhaps the only motivation for including this variable would be as a
proxy that is likely to pick up hostility towards other minorities, otherwise
we are picking “foreigners” as a privileged minority. More generally,
what does “hostility” mean?
Perceived criminality
Perception of criminality is a poor marker of actual criminality. Perceived
criminality has gone up in the United Kingdom, for example, while criminality
has declined. Is it, then, rather than a proxy for criminality, actually
a proxy for people limiting their actions because of perceived danger?
2 The property rights aspect of this variable is presumably picked up in the economic freedom
index.
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