Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A Theory of Liberty

I am thinking a lot about liberty lately. I have a theory that I'm working on, explained as an equation as follows:

L = ER - G

where L = Liberty, and assigned as a number by my equation

and where E = Education
R = Responsibility
and G = Government

For purposes of my equation, at present, I am using E as the high school graduation rate, expressed as a national US average,

R is the voter participation rate, expressed as a percentage in last national election,

G = size of government, expressed as percentage of federal and state/local government spending as percentage of national GDP.

Currently, as I compute it, L = 0.70 * 0.40 - 0.35

Thus, L = negative 0.07

A society is sustainable if its Liberty computes as a positive number. A negative number means the society cannot last.

No comments: