Which country is closest to a Friedmanesque vison?

[Superfan]

the extensive amounts of regulation in the united states combined with Obamacare etc have destroyed the free market system (45% of GDP is government expenditure compared to 10% in 1950). which country has the best combination of economic and social freedoms

[Sienna]

I read that the Scandinavian countries rank higher in the Index of Economic Freedom. Perhaps you could try Googling that?

[simplicitus]

ROTFL

1. Where do you get your 10% figure for 1950, or your 45% for today? Not even close to true:
http://www.chadwickresearch.com/blog/201...on-of-gdp/
unless you are ignoring all state and local spending. Don't you pay state and local taxes? Aren't many regulations state and local?

Your 45% clearly isn't just federal expenditures. Federal expenditures never went above 26%
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.c...f-gdp.html

And total government expenses never went above 37% of GDP
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12...-spending/
Sounds to me like you are trying to cheat to make your case.


2. The countries with the highest standards of living in the world
http://streetlightblog.blogspot.com/2011...r-two.html
are those with even higher government intervention in the economies - the social welfare states
http://www.prosperity.com/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...fare-state
and they are more competitive than the U.S.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalC...010-11.pdf


3. Milton Friedman considered Hong Kong and Singapore prime examples of free market capitalism. But they have government housing, universal health care:
http://www.apaforprogress.org/hong-kong-...-socialist
etc.

So if you think Friedman was serious when he pointed to Hong Kong,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqh0zXSd4vc
then you can't really complain about Obamacare.


4. If you want really "freedom", then there are countries where the government expenditure is less than 10% of GDP. We are talking about places like Turkmenistan, Bangladesh, and Sudan (see the sources).

None of those places are developed; all of those countries are very poor. (Which is exactly what you'd expect when the government doesn't provide universal education, infrastructure, etc.) If you think lack of government spending makes for success, go for it.

Even this libertarian agrees that there is an optimum level:
http://thinkbynumbers.org/economics/gdp/...-spending/
but he twists the data to say it is 37%.

Since you mentioned 1950, compare the per capita GDP growth rate in the U.S. from 1950 to the present with that in developed countries with higher government involvement: the Scandinavian countries, Canada, Australia, etc.

Of course you know what you know, so I doubt any data will convince you otherwise, but I'd love it if you'd prove me wrong.