The Anglosphere and economic freedom

My post last week on the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation 2006 Index of Economic Freedom, and the predominance of the Anglosphere among the most free nations, have prompted an interesting response from James Bennett, who coined the term Anglosphere, on his Albion's Seedling blog. I heartily recommend Bennett's book, The Anglosphere Challenge. Here is the concluding paragraph of his blog post:

"What is it about the Anglosphere that permits its people to form large federations of states with strong civil societies, absorb large numbers of immigrants, and prosper? The short answer is probably something like 'A fifteen-hundred-year history of flexible institutions that are particularly good at capturing the "wisdom of crowds," a tradition of individualism, enterprise, and risk-taking, a high radius of social trust, the ability to spin these characteristics into strong civil societies, and a long history of people expanding and forming institutions of self-government wherever they go.' Many other people have had some or most of these characteristics; it is just that they have never elsewhere all been put together in exactly this package. As we can see once again by the Heritage report, its effectiveness stands out starkly over a wide range of metrics."