@ehBeth,
georgeob1 wrote:There's a lot of factual evidence out there to suggest that the long-term better economic performance of free market economies is far better than that of government-managed economies - and that countries that liberalize formerly government managed economies experience much improved growth and prosperity.
Beth wrote:hmmm (snip graph of GDP growth) some of that 'factual evidence' might be meaningful
Mmmmm --- almost.
You need to distinguish between levels and rates of change. GDP
growth, a rate of change, is a measure of
short-term economic success. But GeorgeOB1 was talking about long-term success. Year-to-year GDP growth tells us nothing about that. The default measure of choice for
long-term economic success is the
level of GDP per capita (and, optionally, hours worked). If you made a similar table of the correct measure (and
The Economist may well have done it somewhere), you would see a different picture. Mostly-unfree economies like China and Russia would be way behind, whereas libertarian economies like America's and and Social-Democratic economies like Western Europe's would be joined at the top.
But contrary to what GeorgeOB1 might expect, you would
not see a big difference between North America and Western Europe. Americans make more money; Europeans have longer paid holidays and work shorter hours; GDP per person and hour worked is comparable. His argument would have been valid during the Cold War, when the competing economic system was Soviet communism. But it doesn't work against the Social Democracies of Western Europe.
