New Hampshire really does live free. Texas and Colorado still retain the wide-open freedoms of the old west.

Steve Malanga reports in City Journal on the results of a freedom survey conducted by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.  Studies like this are helpful because they point out why some states fail while others succeed.

A new study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Freedom in the 50 States, is the most comprehensive effort to date to rank the states on how their public policies influence “individual freedom in the economic, social and personal spheres.” It includes dozens of variables, from social and personal freedoms (such as parents’ right to educate their own children) to regulatory freedom (such as the degree of occupational licensing requirements) to fiscal liberty (as measured, for instance, by states’ debt burdens, which represent a constraint on future generations).

Top 10 (Most Free) States – #1 to #10:
New Hampshire, Colorado, South Dakota, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Virginia, North Dakota

Bottom 10 (Least Free) States #41 to #50:
Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Washington, Hawaii, Maryland, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York

New York came in dead last, and Malanga’s piece is an interesting study of that failed state:

Businesses operating in the state won’t be astonished to hear that its economic freedom is poor, thanks to a tentacular bureaucratic regulatory regime, a civil justice system that favors plaintiffs over defendants, and high taxes and crushing per-capita government debt. [...]

What are the consequences of New Yorkers’ lack of freedom? The best way to judge is to look at the collective condition of the states with the worst rankings. Joining New York at the bottom of the index is New Jersey, in 49th place, followed by Rhode Island and California. Together, New York, New Jersey, and California face some $65 billion in budget deficits in 2009, amounting to more than two-thirds of the budget gaps faced by all 50 states. These states’ stratospheric spending and taxes have stifled economic growth and left them scarily unprepared for the economic downturn.

Data like this is good for poking a finger in the eye of overbearing liberalism, but its true utility is highlighting the root causes of success and failure at the state level.  “It’s all Bush’s fault” only goes so far (and how did the former president destroy only liberal states, anyway?).   Studies like this show that conservatism works when it abandons paternalism, and rampant liberalism is never the path to success.

Merctus.org – Freedom Study
CJ – Malanga