Welcome back to Fraser Insight, the Fraser Institute’s U.S. newsletter. This winter issue of Insight brings sad news of the passing of our friend Jim Gwartney—longtime lead author of Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World, tireless champion of individual liberty, scholar and teacher. The In Context shares more about Professor Gwartney’s life and lifelong contributions to the cause of liberty.

Our In Focus section features a number of deep-dive studies by Fraser scholars, including: the latest Human Freedom Index (the U.S. comes in at a disappointing 17th); two new installments of our Realities of Socialism series; three fresh Essential Scholars podcasts; and thought-provoking studies examining the shortcomings of ESG, the need for expanded metal mining to fuel the burgeoning electric-vehicle industry, and the costly reaction by governments around the world to COVID-19.

Finally, the In Print section spotlights a number of recent essays penned by Fraser scholars covering everything from UN climate goals, to Sweden’s not-so-socialist political-economic system, to the limits of ESG.

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Despite significant spending on clean energy, the world’s dependence on fossil fuels remains unaffected.

The United Nations climate agenda is about worldwide wealth redistribution.

Sweden has deregulated the economy, promoted free trade, reformed social security, introduced school vouchers and, perhaps most surprisingly, reduced taxes on corporations and increased them on low- and middle-income households.

The globalists have coopted the climate issue to sell a grotesque central-planning agenda that the public has repeatedly rejected.

Despite wishful thinking on behalf of ESG proponents, there are practical limits to abandoning shareholder-focused governance. If societies want to promote broad social objectives, they should use laws and regulations to do so.

As a result of increasing restrictions on liberties emanating from the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong—once among the freest places on earth—now ranks 46th on the Human Freedom Index. As recently as 2010, Hong Kong was the third-freest jurisdiction on earth. Switzerland, once again, tops the rankings, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Estonia and Sweden (tied for 5th). The United States and Britain are tied at 17th. Rankings for other countries of interest include: Taiwan (12th), Canada (13th), Japan (16th), Germany (21st), South Korea (28th), France (39th), Ukraine (83rd), Mexico (95th), India (109th) and China (149th). The five least-free countries are (in descending order) Iran, Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen and Syria. The index measures personal freedom—the rule of law, safety and security, identity and relationships, and freedom of movement, speech, assembly and religion—alongside economic freedom. This year’s report finds that 89.8% of the world’s population has experienced a decline in freedom in recent years.

Barring breakthrough developments in battery technology, the massive and rapid expansion of battery-electric vehicle production will require a correspondingly massive and rapid expansion of the mining and refining of the metals and rare earth elements critical to battery-electric vehicle technology.

The past few decades have witnessed increasing demands on the part of prominent investment managers, academics, and environmental and consumer activists, among others, for senior executives and corporate board members to adopt the so-called “stakeholder model” in place of the traditional shareholder model. The “stakeholder model” of corporate governance obliges senior managers and board members to prioritize the interests of groups beyond shareholders in their corporate decision-making. In effect, under the “stakeholder model,” shareholders are only one of several constituencies whose interests should be considered by administrators in the latter’s decision-making.

Denmark is a highly regarded country for good reason: Danes are healthy, wealthy and happy. And they’ve been so for quite a long time. Foreign admirers—on both left and right—often point to Denmark as a policy model, but few seem to appreciate the country’s unusual combination of free enterprise and welfare state.

Estonia is a testament to the productive and ennobling power of freedom. After waves of successive invasions from East and West, the small country on the Baltic Sea was dragooned into the Soviet Union in 1940. There, its people were trapped for five decades. Eventually, Estonia’s workers and intellectuals decided they had nothing to lose but their chains. So, they joined hands—literally—in a mostly peaceful revolution. Finally free, Estonians thrived, achieving a degree of prosperity and equality promised but never realized under socialism.

After more than two years of analysis and retrospective studies, it is unclear if governments—any governments—implemented sound policies as the COVID-19 pandemic exploded. This situation is troubling, as the world will undoubtedly face similar, and perhaps more severe, pandemic challenges again in the future. Society needs to know what worked and what did not work, not only with regard to vaccines, but with regard to the many other interventions government deployed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Join Senior Fellow Rosemarie Fike in her conversation with Professor Steven Landsburg, author of The Essential Milton Friedman, as they discuss Friedman’s insights into monopolies and rising prices.

Dr. Aeon Skoble chats with Senior Fellow Rosemarie Fike about Nozick’s unusual rise to prominence in the field of philosophy.

Russell S. Sobel, co-author of The Essential Joseph Schumpeter, joins Senior Fellow Rosemarie Fike to discuss Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction.”

James D. Gwartney—longtime Fraser Institute senior fellow, lead author of Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World and professor of economics at Florida State University—passed away at his home in Tallahassee on January 7, 2024. He was 83.

“Jim Gwartney was not just a great economist advancing the field as the lead author of Economic Freedom of the World, other important research contributions, and through his ground-breaking textbooks, Economics: Private and Public Choice and Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity, which introduced students and interested readers to free market economics,” said a saddened Fred McMahon, the Dr. Michael A. Walker Chair Economic Freedom Studies at Fraser Institute. “Perhaps even more importantly, Jim was a kind, good and warm human being, who provided help and support to so many others.”

Fellow Economic Freedom of the World author Robert Lawson added: “He made important scholarly contributions, but his role in educating the general public made him truly influential.”

Among his many achievements and honors, Professor Gwartney was the Gus A. Stavros Eminent Scholar at Florida State University; coauthor of the highly influential textbook Economics: Private and Public Choice; chief economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress; and recipient of the Association of Private Enterprise Education’s Adam Smith Award. He was invited by the post-Soviet Russian government to offer recommendations for reforming Russia’s economy. Authoring 100 scholarly articles, his writings and research appeared in all the major professional economics journals, as well as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

Professor Gwartney earned a bachelor’s degree from Ottawa University in Kansas, which today is home to the Gwartney Institute—a scholarly center devoted to “the study of economic freedom and social justice and their role in the advancement of human flourishing.” He met his wife, Amy, during his undergraduate years at Ottawa University. They were blessed with four sons, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

After completing his undergraduate work, Professor Gwartney went on to earn a PhD in economics from the University of Washington. Soon thereafter, he accepted a position at Florida State University, where he spent 53 years as a professor of economics.

His professional accomplishments were all the more remarkable given that he lost his sight more than 30 years ago. He overcame the daily struggles, according to his family, thanks to his wife’s faithful support and “his strong Christian faith.” Indeed, outside the classroom and lecture hall, Professor Gwartney devoted his time and talents to his church, where he led Sunday school classes focused on married couples. But he also “carved out moments for his love for Florida State football and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball.”

To learn more about Professor Gwartney’s remarkable life, we invite you to click here, visit Florida State and the Gwartney Institute, and peruse his books.