Freedom for Individuals in a Given Country - Article Example

Name Professor Course Date Economic Freedom Economic freedom refers to the freedom for individuals in a given country to choose how to produce, sell and use their own resources, without interferences while respecting others’ freedom to do the same. Although it seems a simple concept, it is an engine that makes some nations to prosper, and it has become a key reason why some countries are doing well while others do not. To measure economic freedom, researchers at Southern Methodist University and Florida State University have considered five subcomponents: access to sound money, regulation of credit, business and labor, freedom to trade internationally, legal structure and expenditures and taxes. Therefore, from the components, the government can promote economic freedom by providing a sound legal structure and a proper law-enforcement system to make sure that people’s rights to own property are respected and contracts are enforced by parties concerned. However, it also requires that the government does not take people’s property and interfere with voluntary exchange, personal choice, and freedom to enter and exit the market. Likewise, if the constitution of any country is meant to reduce excessive government restraint on business and protect economic liberty, everybody in the country will enjoy economic freedom (Charles Koch Institute n.pag). Rising taxes and imposing regulations will greatly affect prospects of those wishing to start engineering career, either as employed or as private practitioners. Generally, individual rights to their own welfares will be vigorously checked or protected; in fact the government can destroy legitimate professions or businesses with impunity. Whether one is employed in large engineering corporate enterprises or practicing privately in his firm, he should be prepared to find regulations that cap basic freedoms to form enterprises. These will limit individuals’ motivation, dignity, happiness and self reliance. When these spread to enterprises, employers and other entrepreneurs will not be motivated to expand and share their wealth in terms of jobs. Therefore, when governments impose high taxes and continue with overregulation, there will be uncertainty, accompanied with stifling growth (Berggren 193-201). As already realized, if the government abandons the policy of economic freedom to pursue economic interventionism, most engineering companies, consultancy firms included, will be unable to carry out their functions as per their aspirations. Apart from providing very crucial services so that safe and non costly structures can be designed and constructed, owners of companies also indirectly share their wealth by creating jobs for others. As other companies, too, engineering companies give billions of money in charities, offer critical aids during disasters, and ensure retirement benefits to older people and health care to everybody. However one should not forget the most crucial role of the company to the whole economy; together with others, their aggregate performances will spur economic growth. Economic freedom will ensure that everybody has the right to do business, and therefore, there will be healthy competition and consumers will get access to varieties of best products at the best prices. Companies in such environments will always be competing through innovations by technological advancements or cost saving to improve the welfare of their customers (Berggren 195-201). Currently, there are propositions that to ensure social justice, equality and fairness among various students, academic grades should be redistributed. However according to opponents, the system is deemed to support socialism, and it is likely that it would adversely affect the life of highly achieving students. Such a system, which seeks to ensure social justice in grading, will involve collecting evidence from students’ performance, based on clear learning criteria so that a final decision regarding the student’s achievement can be determined. Proponents see that in contrast with traditional methods of determining students’ achievement through assigning points for quizzes, tests, assignments, and other forms of testing, the new system will remove inherent bias against students with limited family support, students of poverty, and those with little background in knowledge (Babcock 19). However, analysts have noted that this will obviously amount to grade inflation and deflation. First, it will be hard to separate hardworking students who are superior performers from low performers who may not be hard workers. It will have a flawed impact on ranking students to undertake certain majors or careers. In this case for undergraduate, it will be hard to select top performers to continue with post graduate studies and therefore, opportunities in life, if everybody becomes ranked the best. On the other hand, grade deflation will affect one’s self esteem, as getting bad grades is quite demoralizing. When people start being awarded grades that are lower than what their actual capabilities reflect, they will start worrying whether they will be accepted for internship or not. It is important to remember that since most employers consider top grades to represent high achievement and therefore one’s hard work to his career, it will deny him opportunities he deserves in employment or elsewhere. Importantly too, grade deflation will generally influence one’s experience in college (Babcock 19). Most countries around the world embrace the progressive tax system. This is connected to the educational discussion of social justice promotion whereby individuals who earn more should pay higher potions of income tax. The United States, like other major democracies, has a tax system that is considered progressive. Basically, levels of income are broken down into several categories so that the rate of tax can be determined. In this regard, the country has ensured that there is income redistribution, because individuals who earn higher income must pay higher taxes to fund social welfare programs than those who primarily earn less. Engineering occupation has been has rated among other high paying jobs as one of the most taxable, as far as personal income is concerned. Most governments claim that this is normally a win-win situation since if an individual qualifies for an occupation that yields high incomes, he will also qualify for paying high taxes, to build the economy, which is favorable for the government and for him. However, critics of progressive tax claim that this system is discriminatory. For them, they believe that flat system is the best, as it imposes the same tax on everybody regardless of his earning. One of the setbacks of this system is that it discourages people right from school to their work place to work harder, because apart from lack of incentive to work hard, the government is interfering in their economic freedom. Obviously, this will cap their capacity to become successful in life. This kind of system has also been noted to have people with higher tendency to evade tax due to the fact that because of the higher tax rate, more people are rushing to save money by evading tax. Furthermore, the system itself is much costly due to its complexity, as expert lawyers and accountants must be consulted before filing tax returns. Nevertheless, the progressive tax system itself opposes equality, as people of the same country are taxed differently. In this case if the majority earns less income, there will be a tendency for them to propose such a progressive tax system. It cannot go without mentioning that since the system itself defies the constitution which provides equality, it will be wrong therefore to use the majority, or a section of voters to decide what a few should pay more tax to the government (Peter 10-30). One of the salient impacts of the progressive tax system is that it results in migration of jobs and enterprises. Many US companies have been transferring job traditionally done by Americans to low cost economies. Although the companies cite higher costs that include engineering salaries, taxation costs cannot be left out. The government’s poor policies on taxation have seen corporations shifting to abroad or arranging for job off shoring. This was a top US presidential debate issue where both contenders and analysts noted that the US tax code was encouraging companies to shift their jobs to abroad. In fact, for a company considering expanding, putting the second plant in US could not be an option. Companies have been considering expanding to tax heavens where they will remain with more profits for their expansion and for employees to benefit. Competitively, analysts note that corporations exposed to a harsh tax code may lose their competitive advantages to other companies abroad. Therefore, to reverse the situation, a policy intervention of ensuring that the current tax code does not accelerate off shoring of jobs and production operations should be implemented (Peter 30-40). If the government introduces, equality measures especially in matters of taxation, most people who earn higher incomes would enjoy massive tax cuts. In this regard, as most businesses remain with more surpluses to spend, their entrepreneurial spirits and aspirations will increase. Hence, the business will expand, and a lot of jobs will be created too. This will definitely reduce the effect of outsourcing and off shoring, which decrease jobs for local graduates (Peter 35-38). Work Cited Babcock, Philip. Real Costs of Nominal Grade Inflation? New Evidence from Student Course Evaluations. Santa Barbara: University of California, 2009.Print. Berggren, Niclas. The Benefits of Economic Freedom. The Independent Review, 2003: VIII (2). Print. Charles Koch Institute. What is Economic Freedom?. Economic Freedom, 2014. Web. 2014, Peter, Klara S. Income Tax Flattening: Does It Help to Reduce the Shadow Economy?. Bonn: IZA, 2009. Print. Read More