There is a myth that people in the rich countries will have more freedom. For example, people in the United States are rich and have more freedom to express their ideas and vote their president. In other words, it seems that there is a positive relationship between one country’s freedom and finance. However, the reality is what we thought about. In this story, I will use the data which is released by Freedom House and World Bank to explore the relationship between Freedom Scores and each country’s GDP.
Freedom House published the report of Freedom in the world every year. According to Freedom House, “they rate people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in 210 countries and territories through its annual Freedom in the World report.” The freedom index means that people have rights to vote and enjoy the freedom and equality to express their thoughts without penalties. As reported by Freedom House, United States has 83 scores and Japan has 96 scores. It’s not surprising that the two democratic countries have a high score in the freedom index. Meanwhile, the two countries are developed countries. According to World Bank, United States has more than 20 trillion GDP in 2020, and Japan enjoy 5 trillion GDP as well. It seems that the relationship between Freedom Scores and each country’s GDP is positive correlation.
However, if we compared to China, the world’s second-largest economy, we would find it is another side on Freedom House’s freedom index. According to the report, China only has 9 scores in the freedom House’s report. As Freedom House said, “China’s authoritarian regime has become increasingly repressive in recent years. The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is tightening its control over the state bureaucracy, the media, online speech, religious groups, universities, businesses, and civil society associations, and it has undermined its own already modest rule-of-law reforms.” On the flip side, Taiwan has 94 scores in Freedom House’s report. Another example is Russia. Although Russia has more than 1 trillion GDP, they only have 20 scores in Freedom House’s report.
Thus, the relationship between Freedom Scores and one country’s GDP is more complex than we thought.
