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Sep 2, 2006

"What you appreciate -- appreciates." --Lynne Twist

Friedman Prize for Liberty

The former prime minister of Estonia, Mart Larr recently won the 2006 Friedman Prize for Liberty. He says, "I had read only one book on economics -- Milton Friedman's Free to Choose. I was so ignorant at the time that I thought that what Friedman wrote about the benefits of privatization, the flat tax and the abolition of all customs rights, was the result of economic reforms that had been put into practice in the West. It seemed common sense to me and, as I thought it had already been done everywhere, I simply introduced it in Estonia, despite warnings from Estonian economists that it could not be done. They said it was as impossible as walking on water. We did it: we just walked on the water because we did not know that it was impossible." Today, Estonia ranks 9th in the world in economic freedom, with Switzerland and Ireland being the only European nations ranked more highly!