By what metrics do you evaluate a nation?

Great Debates
1

The thread headline actually originated because I was contemplating the culture of patriotism in the US and other country. It’s not uncommon to hear Americans say that the US is the greatest country in the world or that the US is “number one”, and it provokes the question “Number one in what?” in my mind.

Personally I am Swedish and I am not a patriot. I don’t think Sweden is the greatest country in the world, although I think it is pretty good in general judging by the metrics that are important to me. For me those metrics would be gender equality, average living standard, health, happiness and personal liberty. So if I were to claim that a specific country is the greatest in the wold, those are probably the metrics that I would give the most weight.

So what metrics do you judge by and how does your country measure up?

2

Equal (and fair) treatment by law and society, regardless of gender/race/sexual orientation/religion; a balance between economic fairness and economic freedom; good health care; civil rights; freedom of speech and the press (singled out due to their importance); promotion of peace; a focus on treatment and rehabilitation for the criminal justice system; promotion of scientific research… all I can think of right now.

3

The traditional way is GDP per capita, adjusted to take out the effects of strong and weak exchange rates.

Familiar critiques of per person GDP are here:

The UN has a World Development Index, though frankly it is geared towards the bottom 2/3 of the developmental scale and not the top:

There are attempts to address critiques of GDP. One is the Genuine Progress Indicator. A description is here:
http://genuineprogress.net/genuine-progress-indicator/

Wiki:

AFAIK, none of these efforts reflects space programs or number of Nobel Laurettes. They are measures of standard of living, not measures of cultural greatness. I say the US dominates the blowhard race, though Argentina is a real competitor.

4

I’m curious about this and I’m hoping you can go into greater detail.

When you say that you don’t think Sweden is the greatest country in the world, do you mean that you can think of other countries that are greater?

5

Yeah of course I can… to me that question is actually a bit strange, why would I think Sweden is the greatest just because I happen to be born there? In all the metrics I provided there are countries that are greater.

Gender equality I think Iceland is probably the best, though Sweden does place top 3 here which is awesome. Living standard I would think Norway is the highest, not sure where Sweden comes in though I suppose it is probably in the top 10 or so. The health care system here is not that great anymore and AFAIK France has the lead position there, maybe together with Japan. When it comes to happiness it’s probably Costa Rica who takes first prize. Personal liberty I would give to Holland though I think Sweden scores pretty high here as well.

So in general I would say that Sweden is probably one of the better countries in the world to live, but I’d have to at least put both Holland and Norway ahead of us. So at least those two countries would be ”greater” than Sweden judging by my own metrics, and then you have to factor in that the metrics I use happen to be pretty good for Sweden.

There are also several things that I dislike about Sweden. The culture here is very conformist, with very little celebration of individualism, it’s also very un-spiritual and Sweden has an alarmingly high suicide rate as well as a bit of an anti-social culture compared to most countries. Also, the climate is pretty awful. If I were to select a new country to live in I’d probably go with Holland for the culture or Costa Rica for the amazing climate and general warmth and relaxed happiness of the people.

But truly I don’t see there as being a ”greatest country” in the world since it depends on what you value. Different countries are good at different things. But… if I was pressed… I would probably go with Holland as my favorite.

6

I disagree that being a patriot means you have to think that your country is the greatest country in the world. I mean, I don’t think my family is the greatest family in the world, but I love them anyway, because they’re mine. It’s the same with my country. It’s deeply flawed, and maybe, like you suggest, the Netherlands are better… but I’m not Dutch.

And besides, maybe it’s not the best country now, but it may be in the future if I work hard enough. I’m not going to give on it just because some other place happens to be better right now.

7

HDI is a decent metric

Beyond that, I look at R&D as a % of GDP. I don’t know if that is an official metric but I like it.

8

The measuring survey I prefer comes from the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine. The Fragile States Index.

http://fsi.fundforpeace.org/rankings-2015

Based on 10 indicators of risk and is based on thousands of articles and reports, with indicators like
Poverty, Economic Decline, Human Flight, Security Apparatus, State Legitimacy (Last two dealing with justice human rights and representation) and others.

You guys in Sweden are #2 (going in reverse, the high number there is actually showing Sweden as #177) on the most stable and better (the higher the number the better), you will have to do something about the Finns. :slight_smile:

9

Are you sure you don’t mean “best”? “Greatest” can just mean the one with the most impact on the world, in which case the US probably wins hands down.

From one perspective, I can imagine that the best country is the one that most people in the world would like to live in, if given the opportunity. I would not be surprised if the US won the popularity contest.

Personally, I really like where I live-- Northern California. It just so happens to be part of the US, but that’s not particularly important. If this was Canada, I think I’d like it just as much. As long as this area was part of what we think of as “The West”, I’d probably still want to live here. Alternatively, I’d love to live in various places in Europe-- Spain or France or Italy or maybe even Germany, at least for a time. In terms of living somewhere in “The West”, you probably wouldn’t notice much difference as long as you’re middle class.

If I was on the poor end of the scale, and thought I was likely be stuck there, I’d probably want to live somewhere in “The West” with a better social safety net than the US.

There are lots of things I dislike about the US, but most of them are associated with foreign policy, and to be perfectly honest, they just don’t affect my life in an important way.

10

I wasn’t suggesting that. I will admit I was wondering if there was some stealth bragging involved but I see there was not.

11

You can use the word best rather than greatest if you prefer, I wasn’t aware that there was a significant difference between the words.

I think you make two interesting points, one about popularity and one about what social class you belong to. If you’re going to be poor (which I guess I am, economically) Scandinavian countries are probably the best in the world. Compared to most of the world there is very little ”real” poverty here, the social security system makes sure nobody starves to death.

The popularity thing is interesting but also a bit misleading, since it depends more on image and marketing than on reality. I know the US has a great image, but from my knowledge and experience, I don’t find it attractive at all. High crime rates, huge income inequalities, a pretty violent, un-empathetic and somewhat anti-intellectual culture… It does not rank highly for me, in fact I’d be afraid to live there. I’d much rather live in Canada. My impression of the US is that it is aggressive and uncaring, with a lot of social tension. Probably good for the very wealthy, but then again, most countries are.

Frankly the ”bragging” about ones country never made any sense to me. I think I as an individual human being was fortunate to be born here, but how can I ”brag” about something that I had no choice in? I can brag about personal achievements but I wouldn’t put getting squeezed out of a vagina in a particular administration of a geographical area as an achievement. I think Sweden as a nation has done some good things and some bad things, but I don’t really feel personally responsible for any of it.

Actually I guess that is one thing I like about Sweden, there is not really any nationalism or patriotism being indoctrinated into the citizens here. It’s pretty objective and neutral in most cases. When a swede says he/she is a patriot or nationalist, that’s usually a code word for racist or at least strongly anti-immigration.

12

I realize that this is Great Debates, but honestly the answer would be, “Do I want to live there?” It’s not really a metric and it’s not based on metrics.

Like, say that by being a good guy - turning the other cheek, forgiving as soon as you can, etc. - that causes greater crime in your country. But, it’s the mission statement of your country to be like that, so you just have to suck it up, because you feel that the morality of the situation demands it, or move to a different nation where they beat up suspects for confessions and have almost no crime, because you’ve decided that as a society, that’s part of the risk you take to be at risk of torture by the police but on the whole safer in your daily life.

Or say that you you live in a nation that believes there should always be support from the community - a guaranteed income, guaranteed medical care, etc. - no matter who you are nor what you contribute to society. But consequently, there’s low productivity, low rates of invention, the country isn’t very wealthy and can only provide low quality service. But maybe that’s worth it to you because you also believe that a guaranteed income, guaranteed medical care, etc. are right and that any downsides to that choice are worth it. So great, there’s a country that believes as you do. But if you don’t believe as they do, if you think that guarantees drive down the willingness of people to better the world, for financial gain, and a short-term cash grab at the expense of everyone else, well then hopefully there’s a different country that encourages people to work hard, to build up businesses, to invest in the future, etc.

I’m generally unwilling to accept the idea that certain things are better than others. Even in the case where there is no downside - I make no claims that the above examples match reality - that still doesn’t mean that the lesser options won’t be preferred by someone. To someone, living as a regular citizen in North Korea might just be the their little slice of heaven. I would personally not choose that, but I’m willing to accept that my idea of perfection is not everyone’s.

But so overall, I don’t think that there’s a best nation or a best set of metrics to judge them by. I wish that each nation had a sort of “underlying philosophy” which they genuinely worked off of and attempted to perfect themselves at (up to the point where all hell starts to break loose if it was untenable) and that it was easy for people to switch nationality easily. But I would expect the result to be, as you see today, some countries would have awful metrics but be very popular to live in (Greece, Mexico, Turkey, etc.), and others would have great metrics but be unpopular to live in (Switzerland, Singapore, Iceland, etc.). And that’s perfectly fine because we’re all different people with different beliefs.

13

One metric is the power it its passport:

14

I guess I’d measure average quality of life, crime rates, education, personal freedom, etc. - all the usual contenders. I’d give extra points for large nations that can score highly in those regards, because it doesn’t mean much to me if a tiny country like Liechtenstein tops the charts (great though that achievement may be).

Have you been to the US? I’m no apologist for the country (and don’t currently live there, nor do I want to), but I think you have a very skewed perception. The crime rates are higher than most of Europe’s, but outside a few bad areas there’d be no reason to be “afraid” to live there. “Anti-intellectual”? The US has many of the world’s best universities and does very well in terms of inventions, international awards, etc.

Also, Canada is fine, but (at least in the Anglophone parts) is not that distinguishable from the US. If I had to live in one or the other, I’d go with the US.

15

There’s always a tradeoff. Sure you could live in a super liberal society with lots of benefits, opportunity, and social harmony, as long as you like living in a frozen hellscape where they eat pickled fish. I’m sure to a lot of people year long bikini weather and good food is worth political corruption and the occasional race war.

16

Well, you can always come up with excuses why people are too stupid to pick what is actually best for them, but I don’t find that more elitist than persuasive. Also, keep in mind that the US is a very big place. Imagine someone saying they don’t like “Europe”. Not very meaningful. You probably wouldn’t like living in Alabama, but you’d probably find MA, WA, CT or where I live to be pretty damn nice.

17

I don’t think in those terms either. From the UK. It’s a redundant notion - an abstract of something I’m not overly interested in and certainly I did nothing to make this nation state what it is.

Metrics: Happiness, contentment, maybe based on opportunity and social justice.

18

There is.

It may be that you so little value greatness that you don’t quite sense what that English word means.

Personally, I’m ambivalent over whether greatness is good. Take the Olympics, or the World Cup. I don’t care about these measures of greatness, but a lot of people do. On the other hand, I do like having a passport that opens foreign doors like no other, which mine does (except, according to my previous link, the UK).

If we are just talking about a beautiful, pleasant, reasonably free, county without a lot of poverty, of those I’ve personally been to, Luxembourg is number one. But it’s not a great nation.

19

For non-native English speakers:

Great and best can mean the same thing, but “great”, especially when applied to nations, often means “most impactful”. You can be great and not good. One might say that Nazi Germany was one of the greatest countries in Europe in the 20th century. Great in having one of the largest impacts, mostly bad.

I think the OP is looking for “best”, and I would also add that when your typical American says that America is the greatest country in the world, most mean best.

20

I think most mean greatest. If you were to convince them that Luxembourg has a significantly higher standard of living than we do (as is of course the case), and less crime, and better heath care, etc., etc., they would still think America is the greatest.

As for an objective metric, I do think that immigrant desires are the best. Survey the people in Greek refugee camps, or those camped out in Calais, as to their first choice of where to go if they could fly for free anywhere, and be admitted as permanent residents. There will be your answer.