In these times of ideological polarization, often unwisely devoid of philosophical rigor and formative commitment, it is timely to reflect on the meaning and importance of economic freedom as conceived by classical Anglo-British liberal thought, from John Locke to Friedrich Hayek.

This school of thought defines economic freedom as the citizen's ability to work, undertake, carry out transactions, own property and use it. It presupposes state recognition of these civic rights in favor of autonomous economic activity and of property staff and productive property, both 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, economic freedom translates into free economic agency in the marketplace which, in turn, leads to prosperity and, through prosperity, to stability in social peace. Not only does it allow "good people to do good," as Milton Friedman famously wrote with his wife Rose in Free to Choose, but it also encourages bad people to do equally good. Economic freedom is good because it promotes the common good in prosperity and stability. This thinking is based on the idea of spontaneous order, understanding that voluntary and self-interested interaction between economic agents minimizes waste, maximizes production, effects an optimal and efficient distribution of resources, promotes creative innovation and facilitates socio-political interdependence.

Economic freedom, at final, facilitates particular happiness in the common good - the central and integrating principle of social ethics - which, in turn, is defined as the plenary session of the Executive Council development of the human personality, that is, the integral and sustainable fulfillment of 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, which allow individuals and communities full and rapid access to their own fulfillment.

Thus understood, economic freedom does not deny that individual private property rights, so important for human dignity and its development, are susceptible to regulation by public authority in the interest of the community: indeed, the State has a legitimate role in administering schemes of distributive justice for the sake of equity insofar as they do not systematically revoke economic freedom. The good of the political community legitimizes the regulation of economic activity to correct monopolies and other market failures and frauds . So does taxation; whether to fund cash subsidies, the compassionate provision - justly, at final - of essential public goods (health, housing, Education), or to shore up basic human dignity, especially that of those who are involuntarily unable to represent their own economic agency.

Taking from patron saint classical liberalism and the laissez-faire Economics , for free market constitutionalism - free market constitutionalism - the public authority has as fundamental obligations: the preservation of law and order, the protection of private property, the enforcement of laws, the fulfillment of contractual agreements, the promotion of fair skill , the integrity of money, the liberalization of trade and the provision of a minimum welfare for a dignified life, all of them constitutional values determinant for the preservation and promotion of economic freedom. The public authority has another fundamental obligation: to refrain as far as possible from an overly narrow management of the lives of residents as economic agents and from an overly proactive intervention in the market process through macroeconomic, industrial or income redistribution policies.

In the face of this political-constitutional model , the individual prevails over the collective, laissez-faire over interventionism, entrepreneurship over "welfare", freedom over equality. It is noteworthy that those societies with an Anglo-British bequest such as Singapore, New Zealand, the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada and, logically enough, the United Kingdom, are all economies that, according to the Fraser Institute, are among the ten freest in the world. They all offer a dynamic and diverse marketplace, creative and innovative, entrepreneurial and secure, where their residents - individually and collectively - can exercise their economic agency, organizing their talents and resources with the greatest freedom in the world. For The Heritage Foundation, Spain does not appear among the world's free economies, or even among the mostly free, but among the moderately free.

Without economic freedom there can be no prosperity and without prosperity there can be no stability.