I can’t believe Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. That’s so recent.
Something interesting I didn’t know though is that Marx predicted everyone would be poor and capitalism would end and communism would begin.
Welp. Let’s look at the data.
Maybe there is something to what Marx said. Most countries do not have free market systems.
And here is a nice index of the most to least economically free countries in the world.
Most economic freedom:
- Hong Kong 2. Singapore 3. New Zealand 4. Switzerland 5. Australia
Least economic freedom:
- North Korea 2. Cuba 3. Venezuela 4. Zimbabwe 5. Turkmenistan
Quality of life
Here is one of my favorite indexes, the Human Development Index. It’s a statistic of life expectancy, education, and income per capita indicators.
Highest quality of life:
- Norway 2. Australia 3. Switzerland 4. Denmark 5. Netherlands
Lowest quality of life:
- Argentina 2. Latvia 3. Croatia 4. Kuwait 5. Cuba
My own personal conclusion
In my opinion, I would rather live in the more economically free countries, and the countries with the highest quality of life, which seem to overlap somewhat. My conclusion is that the free market countries, overall, have a higher quality of life than the less economically free countries.
Another thing I noticed is that the lower quality of life countries, if you look at the expanded index, have more government control of economic and social issues.
Here’s a cool thing called the Nolan Chart that places political ideology on a spectrum instead of just left and right. I couldn’t find sources for these two but it’s for educational reasons, and also I don’t make any money on this blog.
Here is something similar but in triangle form
