Gonzalo Villalta, Full Professor: "Hong Kong is the freest Economics in the world because of its free market constitutionalism".

Professor Gonzalo Villalta Puig, Full Professor of International Public Law and International Relations and director of the department of International Relations of the School of Law, in partnership with the also Full Professor and jurist, Professor Eric C Ip of the University of Hong Kong, has just published with Routledge: The Freest Market in the World: The Constitutional Logic of Economic Liberty in China's Hong Kong; the first monographic study on Hong Kong - historically, the freest market in the world - and its Basic Law as an economic constitution.

The book is the result of a project on the constitutional foundations of free markets sponsored by the group of research of programs of study Constitutional Foundations of Free Trade and Economics Policy of the International association of Constitutional Law.

The monograph is published by Routledge, simultaneously in London and New York. "Given our Hayekian heritage, we were especially excited to publish with Routledge. This was the publishing house of Friedrich Hayek who, back in 1944, published with Routledge and for the first time, The Road to Serfdom, and then, in the 1970s - the decade in which Hayek won the award Nobel Prize from Economics - Law, Legislation and Liberty, also with Routledge; books to which our book owes so much," explains Professor Villalta Puig.

The publication incorporates several forewords, including one with the signature by David Neuberger, former Chief Justice of the UK Supreme Court, Britain's highest judicial body. "His participation in the monograph was easy," comments the professor; "Lord Neuberger, like us, is a convinced believer in Hayek's thought and a great connoisseur of the Hong Kong legal system being, for years, a judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal."

The cover of the book - a photograph of the Hong Kong skyline - is intended as an allegory of the thesis that harmonizes it: the goddess of Justice - personifying the rule of law - stands above the coat of arms of the United Kingdom that decorates the entrance of the early 20th century Palace of Justice in the center of the old Victoria City - a reminder of British colonial rule - and, in the background, two skyscrapers for the 21st century: IM Pei's tower with the offices of the Bank of China and Cesar Pelli's tower with the headquarters of CK Hutchison Holdings, the former Cheung Kong of Li Ka-shing, emblematic figure of Hong Kong's free-market constitutionalism.

Why Hong Kong, why now and what were the origins of this monograph as project of research?

Many sense it, few perhaps know it, but Hong Kong has always been the world's freest market Economics ... and continues to be, year after year, now along with Singapore. Taking advantage of the recent twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Region management assistant of the People's Republic of China, it is timely to reflect on the meaning and importance of economic freedom from the perspective provided by the political-constitutional Philosophy . This is, precisely, the object of the monograph just published and which, in its origins, began as a project of research with the financial support of the General Fund of research of the committee Hong Kong research Scholarship Fund during my time as Full Professor and Outstanding Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

What are the key concepts provided by the monograph?

We claim that Hong Kong is the freest Economics in the world because of its free market constitutionalism, which Professor Eric C Ip, Full Professor of Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, and I call in English "free market constitutionalism", a first concept in the doctrine. And what is free market constitutionalism? We argue that it is the constitutional articulation - rules and regulations and conventional - of classical Anglo-British economic liberal thought, advocated from John Locke to Friedrich Hayek, whose principles evolved in Hong Kong over a century and a half of British colonial rule (1841 - 1997) and were codified in its Basic Law by the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. This constitutionalism starts from the idea that "the most efficient way to organize activities is to let voluntary solutions emerge freely", as James M Buchanan - Nobel laureate of award Economics in 1986 - and Gordon Tullock wrote in The Calculus of Consensus, the work that gave rise to the theory of public choice and to the economic-constitutional school from which Professor Ip and I come from.

Is economic freedom compatible with the common good?

Economic freedom is compatible with the common good. Economic freedom is the ability of the citizen to act as an economic agent with inherent rights to work, undertake, carry out transactions, own property and use it. It presupposes state recognition of these freedoms and civic rights in favor of autonomous economic activity and property staff and productive, both of which are guarantors of the freedom to produce and distribute goods and services. Ultimately written request, it is the joint freedom of private property and contract or, more simply, the freedom of choice in both property and contract. Thus defined, free economic agency in the marketplace leads to prosperity and, through prosperity, to stability in social peace because it not only allows "good people to do good," as Milton Friedman - award Nobel Prize winner Economics of 1976 - wrote with his wife Rose in Free to Choose, but it also incentivizes bad people to do equally good. We believe that economic freedom is good because it promotes the common good in favor of prosperity and stability. Our thinking is based on the idea of spontaneous order, understanding that voluntary and self-interested interaction among economic agents minimizes waste, maximizes production, effects an optimal and efficient distribution of ever scarce resources, promotes creative innovation and facilitates socio-political interdependence. We conclude that economic freedom, in final, facilitates particular happiness in the common good - central and integrating principle of social ethics - which, in turn, we define as the plenary session of the Executive Council development of the human personality, that is, the integral and sustainable fulfillment for both the individual and the community. Economic freedom is, therefore, a means to an end in the sense of a necessary, though not sufficient, condition; it is part of the sum of those conditions of social life such as peace, justice, abundance, health and security that allow individuals and communities full and rapid access to their own fulfillment.

Could it be said that Hong Kong's Basic Law is a unique constitutional rule in the world?

Hong Kong's constitutional framework , in addition to being a model, is unique in the world: its Basic Law, enacted in accordance with the Chinese Constitution and through the innovative principle of "one country, two systems", is designed by taking from patron saint classical liberalism and the laissez-faire Economics , thus standing as a true counter-model to the prevailing interventionist "welfareism" of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Its economic provisions resemble a catalog of market opportunities: the right to own property; freedom of choice of profession or official document; independent finance; fiscal prudence under a balanced budget ; an independent tax system and pressure leave; maintenance of international financial center status; the free operation of business and financial markets; the free flow of capital; maintenance of free port status along with a free trade policy with free movement of goods; a separate customs territory with its own certificates of origin; access of ships to ports; maintenance of international and regional aviation hub status; and freedom of movement, all provisions with the guarantee of the rule of law and judicial independence.

What distinguishes Hong Kong as the freest market in the world?

Thanks to its Basic Law, Hong Kong offers a dynamic and diverse marketplace, creative and innovative, entrepreneurial and secure, where its residents - individually and collectively - can exercise their economic agency, organizing their talents and resources with the greatest freedom in the world. Its barriers and bureaucratic burdens are minimal, its taxes are low (progressively from 2 to 17 percent of income), its fiscal reserves are a fabulous treasure equivalent to 14 months of public expense , its streets remain safe day and night, its trains and buses run like clockwork, its parks and facilities are kept clean and orderly, its bridges and tunnels are engineering marvels, nearly 46 percent of its population resides in public housing, its colleges and universities are top ranked with three of its universities ranked among the top 50 in the world and its world-class public health attendance is available for just over 20 euros a hospital admission.... These are all hallmarks of the prosperity and stability that identify China's Hong Kong - Asia's global city - as the world's freest market.

With these data on the table, why don't all economies follow the Hong Kong model ?

Hong Kong's economic model is unique because of its intersystemic political-constitutional history and its geographic advantage and quasi-anthropological function as a commercial window - free port - from China to the world and from the world to China, reasons all intermingled with a neo-Confucian ethic of self-cultivation - of self-sufficiency, at final - and impossible to summarize fairly. Apart from these reasons, as a Special Region management assistant of the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong has a small territory and a homogeneous population, characteristics that allow for more subsidiary governance. These characteristics are observed in several of the other freest economies in the world, such as Singapore or Luxembourg... And then there is the ideological charisma inherent in the civic-identity construction: in those societies with an Anglo-British bequest the individual prevails over the collective, laissez-faire over interventionism, freedom over equality, which is the case of New Zealand, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada and, very logically, the United Kingdom, all economies that appear among the ten freest in the world. Certainly, Spain does not appear among the world's free economies, not even among the mostly free ones, but among the moderately free ones.