Most Europeans and many Americans think so. But they don’t check the facts. The graph below compares GDP growth since 1991. The U.S. and the U.K. clearly outperformed France and Germany. (Source)

Watch or listen to a very informative and entertaining “Munk”-debate on this important question.

Munk Debates: Climate Change

The necon hawks want to cripple the Iranian economy with massive sanctions or even go to war. Most of their opponents prefer to simply ignore the realities in Tehran. Is there a better way? Can we avoid a terrible war without giving in to a brutal theocracy?

Watch and listen to a very informative debate between Jacqueline Shire, a senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security and well-known expert on Iran’s nuclear program, and Richard Parker, founder of the American Foreign Policy Project, at Bloggingheads.TV:

Worldwise: Iran and the Bomb

Also watch the video of a conference by the Cato Institute on How to Deal with Iran: Options for Today and for the Future

When poor, desperate and uneducated peasants or slum dwellers fall for authoritarian populists like Hugo Chavez, it’s a tragedy, because they have to pay a terrible price for it. But when Western intellectuals romanticise violent revolution without even trying to check the facts, it’s a shame.

Watch or listen to María Corina Machado, President of Súmate, a leading pro-democracy NGO, discuss the Failure of Social Policy in Venezuela at the Cato Institute.

Also watch this impressing PBS-Frontline documentary about the Hugo Chavez Show

Milton and Rose Friedman founded the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice to fight a public school system, which is run by government bureaucrats, school boards and teachers, and in which students and their parents have almost no way of holding them accountable.

Watch Milton Friedman explain why he believes that all students, but especially those from poor neighborhoods, would benefit from a school voucher system, which would break the government monopoly on education by empowering the parents:

Private Enterprise in Education

After decades of suffering under brutal Soviet occupation and no less brutal Taliban rule, the people of Afghanistan deserve freedom, dignity and prosperity. We should do all we can to help them build a stable democratic system and a modern market economy. But we need a serious debate about the right means to achieve these goals – and we need it now!

Watch these two equally impressive, informative and important documentaries about war and everday life in the graveyard of empires:

PBS-FRONTLINE: Obama’s War

Brave New Foundation: Rethink Afghanistan

Watch this impressive and uplifting documentary by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto and the Institute for Liberty and Democracy:

The Mystery of Capital among the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon

“A documentary of significance with findings from indigenous communities in Alaska, Canada and the Peruvian jungle.”

Watch John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, talk about his book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them at the Daily Show or C-Span.

There are so many myths and legends surrounding the collapse of communist totalitarianism, the nonviolent revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe and the development since then. What has really changed? And why? Are the people of the region really richer and freer today? And if so, how much?

The Cato Institute held a very informative half-day conference on these subjects featuring many reformers and experts. You can watch three videos of the panel discussions on their website, and if you are interested in the region, you should miss none of them! The keynote adress was given by Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic.

Freedom and Prosperity in Central and Eastern Europe
20 Years after the Collapse of Communism

“This year marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A major advance in humanity’s struggle for freedom, the collapse of communism has generally led to an increase in human well-being, with several ex-communist countries becoming free and prosperous. Yet the spread of liberty has been uneven. Many ex-communist countries lag behind and some have even reverted to political repression and economic dirigism.”

When governments are too small, they aren’t able to secure our basic rights. When they are too big, they become a drag to the economy. But what is the growth-optimising size of government? We are not sure. And the answer of course depends on what exactly government is doing. But most scientific studies have shown it is somewhere between 12% and 30% of GDP. Now another study by the bulgarian Institute for Market Economics comes to the conclusion that it is very likely to be under 25 %. This means that all OECD-governments are far too big. Even the richest societies could be much richer, had they stopped or at least slowed the growth of government in the last decades.

Here you can read the study. And here you can watch a short video about it.

But not the way most environmentalists want us to! Björn Lomborg, founder of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an organisation which asks scientists to rank the world’s major problems and the possible solutions to them, has now asked dozens of experts and economists – among them three nobel laureates – to find a scientific answer to the question: “How can we best reduce suffering from global warming?” I will only say this much about the final results of their research: They are very likely to surprise you!

Watch Bjorn Lomborg explain the latest findings at Reason.TV