Of all the countries in the world rated Prosperous, all of them except two, also rank as Free.
This is the result of a new index by the Atlantic Council, presented at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. The Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show a strong connection between democracy and a good life.
High values of Freedom are associated with high values of Prosperity, and low values of Freedom are associated with low values of Prosperity.
- All countries in the Free category fall in either the Prosperous category or in the upper half of the Mostly Prosperous category.
- No Free countries in 2021 are Mostly Unprosperous or Unprosperous.
- All Unfree countries, except one, in our Freedom Index rank in the Mostly Unprosperous or Unprosperous categories
- Citizens in Free countries are five times richer in per capita income ($36,142) than citizens in Mostly Free countries ($7,246) and six times richer than citizens in Mostly Unfree societies ($5,791).
- The average Health score jumps from 60.6 to 87.5 when moving from the Mostly Free to the Free category.
- The average Environment score drops by more than 50 percent when moving from the Free group to the Mostly Free group.
- People in Free countries are almost three times happier than people in Unfree countries.
What about China?
China ranks 140 on the Freedom Index and 114 on the Prosperity Index. China’s economic growth has been impressive, but it is still far from achieving broad-based prosperity.
China ranks only 57 on the Income score, with a GNI per capita of just over $10,000. This puts it in the middle-income range, below other Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore.
Read the whole report and see a video summary and discussion at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.
Johan Norberg
