[lbo-talk] Human Freedom Index

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/19/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> The 1991 Human Development Report <http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/
> 1991/en/pdf/hdr_1991_ch1.pdf> came up with a Human Freedom Index,
> based on countries' performance on some 40 measures of personal
> freedom. The rankings of those in the top group, "high freedom":
>
>   1 Sweden
>   2 Denmark
>   3 Netherlands
>   4 Finland
>   5 New Zealand
>   6 Austria
>   7 Norway
>   8 France
>   9 Germany
> 10 Belgium
> 11 Canada
> 12 Switzerland
> 13 USA
> 14 Australia
> 15 Japan
> 16 UK
> 17 Greece
> 18 Costa Rica
>
> With the exception of NZ, the Anglo-Saxon "liberal" countries are not
> at the top of this list.

That is because the United Nations, an Un-American organization,
included several standards violations of which are compatible with,
and indeed _enabled_ by, political liberalism of the Anglo-American
variety: e.g., "the freedom for _social and economic equality_ for
ethnic minorities" (emphasis added,
<http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1991/en/pdf/hdr_1991_ch1.pdf>p.
20).  It is American political liberalism that keeps you down here.
-- 
Yoshie