Maybe all these "small government", "liberty" people responding can explain how it fits with their world view that the northern European countries, who are not known for the smallness of their governments, consistently manage to have the highest standard of living and the most well-functioning and democratic governments in the world?
> who are not known for the smallness of their governments, consistently manage to have the highest standard of living and the most well-functioning and democratic governments in the world?
Their standard of living is not the highest.
Moreover, they're basically monocultural. Minnesota works about as well as the Scandanavian countries.
And how do you intend to do objective comparison on standard of living? How do you weight the unemployment figure above, for example, in such a measure?
Unemployment rates are counted differently in other countries. In the United States, you have to be looking for a job to be counted as unemployed, so our numbers tend to look lower than they actually are.
Also, an American friend of mine who lives in France tells me that, because of French social programs, unemployment is not as scary or devastating there as it is in the states.
On the other hand, I have a French friend who lives in the States and enjoys the American sense of innovation and competitive spirit which he feels is lacking in France.
You're right, standard of living is hard to be objective about. One common measure is the Human Development Index. The US does pretty well in this compared to the rest of the world, but not compared to our more socialist sisters in Europe like France. I think one of the reasons for America's HDI lagging behind European countries is our lack of universal health care, but that's another topic.
Maybe all these "small government", "liberty" people responding can explain how it fits with their world view that the northern European countries, who are not known for the smallness of their governments, consistently manage to have the highest standard of living and the most well-functioning and democratic governments in the world?