IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecosys/v34y2010i1p91-104.html

Capitalism and freedom?

Author

Listed:
  • Pryor, Frederic L.

Abstract

This essay tests Milton Friedman's conjecture that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. For the decade around 2000 indices of the degree of capitalism and the degree of political freedom are highly correlated and provide plausibility for Friedman's conjecture. In looking at changes over time in the nineteenth century, however, the analysis refutes Friedman's conjecture. These apparently contradictory results are reconciled by showing that both capitalism and freedom are related to such variables as the educational level of the population so that, although not causally tied, they are correlated in a cross-national comparison.

Suggested Citation

  • Pryor, Frederic L., 2010. "Capitalism and freedom?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 91-104, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:34:y:2010:i:1:p:91-104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0939-3625(09)00055-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Besley, Timothy & Kudamatsu, Masayuki, 2007. "Making autocracy work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3764, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Pryor,Frederic L., 2005. "Economic Systems of Foraging, Agricultural, and Industrial Societies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521613477.
    3. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    4. Pryor, Frederic L, 1972. "An International Comparison of Concentration Ratios," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 54(2), pages 130-140, May.
    5. repec:wbk:wbpubs:28241 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:wbk:wbpubs:11855 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Pryor,Frederic L., 2005. "Economic Systems of Foraging, Agricultural, and Industrial Societies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521849043.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2008. "Income and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 808-842, June.
    9. Kaufmann, Daniel & Kraay, Aart & Mastruzzi, Massimo, 2007. "Governance Matters VI: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2006," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4280, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marta Marson & Matteo Migheli & Donatella Saccone, 2021. "New evidence on the link between ethnic fractionalization and economic freedom," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 257-292, September.
    2. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2018. "The Hayek–Friedman hypothesis on the press: is there an association between economic freedom and press freedom?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 617-638, August.
    3. Ryan H Murphy, 2024. "Not following the script: When institutional development is uneven," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 338-352, June.
    4. Aurolipsa Das & Narayan Sethi, 2023. "Modelling the environmental pollution-institutional quality nexus in low- and middle-income countries: exploring the role of financial development and educational level," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 1492-1518, February.
    5. Tausch, Arno, 2015. "Hofstede, Inglehart and beyond. New directions in empirical global value research," MPRA Paper 64282, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 May 2015.
    6. Kapás, Judit & Czeglédi, Pál, 2011. "Gazdasági szabadság, politikai szabadság és a társadalmi rendek [Economic freedom, political freedom, and social orders]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 485-510.
    7. Ryan H. Murphy, 2025. "Social Repression and Variation within the Human Freedom Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 1193-1212, April.
    8. Ryan H. Murphy, 2019. "Governance and the dimensions of autocracy," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 131-148, June.
    9. O'Reilly, Colin & Murphy, Ryan H., 2025. "Freedom from unit roots? The time series properties of democracy and economic freedom," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 472-489.
    10. Judit Kapás & Pál Czeglédi, 2018. "Social orders, and a weak form of the Hayek–Friedman Hypothesis," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(3), pages 291-328, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Blanco, Luisa & Grier, Robin, 2012. "Natural resource dependence and the accumulation of physical and human capital in Latin America," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 281-295.
    2. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    3. Papaioannou, Elias & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2008. "Economic and social factors driving the third wave of democratization," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 365-387, September.
    4. Arusha Cooray, 2012. "Suffrage, Democracy and Gender Equality in Education," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 21-47, June.
    5. Pryor, Frederic L., 2008. "Culture rules: A note on economic systems and values," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 510-515, September.
    6. J. Rosser & Marina Rosser, 2008. "A critique of the new comparative economics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(1), pages 81-97, March.
    7. Gabriel Leon, 2014. "Loyalty for sale? Military spending and coups d’etat," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 363-383, June.
    8. Teles, Vladimir K & Pereira, Carlos, 2013. "Are Political Institutions Substitutes for Democracy? A Political Economy Analysis of Economic Growth," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 33(1), September.
    9. Andreas Assiotis & Kevin Sylwester, 2013. "Do the effects of corruption upon growth differ between democracies and autocracies?," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 06-2013, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    10. Schnabel, Isabel & Körner, Tobias, 2010. "Public Ownership of Banks and Economic Growth - The Role of Heterogeneity," CEPR Discussion Papers 8138, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    11. repec:fgv:epgrbe:v:65:n:4:a:1 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Kerekes, Monika, 2012. "Growth miracles and failures in a Markov switching classification model of growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 167-177.
    13. Pushan Dutt & Devashish Mitra, 2008. "Inequality and the Instability of Polity and Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1285-1314, August.
    14. Paola Giuliano & Prachi Mishra & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2013. "Democracy and Reforms: Evidence from a New Dataset," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 179-204, October.
    15. Masayuki Kudamatsu, 2012. "Has Democratization Reduced Infant Mortality In Sub-Saharan Africa? Evidence From Micro Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1294-1317, December.
    16. Manthos D. Delis & Iftekhar Hasan & Pantelis Kazakis, 2014. "Bank Regulations and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(5), pages 1811-1846.
    17. Ferguson, Shon & Formai, Sara, 2013. "Institution-driven comparative advantage and organizational choice," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 193-200.
    18. Castelló-Climent, Amparo, 2008. "On the distribution of education and democracy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 179-190, October.
    19. Lima, Adalberto de & Gonçalves, Carlos Eduardo Soares, 2011. "Determinantes da democracia: Novos olhares sobre um velho debate," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 65(4), November.
    20. Mohamed Jellal & Mohamed, Bouzahzah & Simplice A. Asongu, 2015. "Institutional Governance, Education and Growth," Research Africa Network Working Papers 15/059, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    21. Manthos D. Delis & Iftekhar Hasan & Pantelis Kazakis, 2014. "Bank Regulations and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 18(5), pages 1811-1846.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:34:y:2010:i:1:p:91-104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/osteide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.