>>Right, because they have a lot of low hanging fruit to pick. I'd rather live in a advanced economy with a high standard of living than a developing one with a high growth rate.
Of course I would rather live in an advanced economy, but the question is, how does an economy become advanced.
The evidence strongly suggests it's most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies.
The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights:
There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies.
We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates.
Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.
And there is no indication, or reason to believe, that economic growth's positive impact on quality of life disappears when economies become advanced. There is a strong correlation between per capita GDP and quality of life, and the reason is obvious: higher productivity gives people greater means to meet their needs.
>>They still have excellent outcomes and high rankings in the HDI and Satisfaction with Life index.
My point is that Hong Kong and Singapore did substantially better than them in improving their metrics.
Like I said, the Scandinavian countries attained the highest standard of living ranking in the 1960s, when they were still very free market oriented and had moderate tax rates, and had just had a century of the best economic growth rates in the world, again with free market economic policies.
Your analysis misattributes the cause of their high standard of living to their current social democratic policies, when all the evidence indicates that it was due to their previously more free market policies.
>>A 99% tax rate on marginal incomes above, say, $10 million, or marginal wealth above $1 billion, would probably not be disastrous, no.
This would be absolutely disastrous. Major companies, that bring in tens of billions in export revenue for the US, and produce groundbreaking innovations for the world, would have been founded and centered outside of the US, or simply never come into existence, with those kinds of disincentives for entrepreneurs and investors in place.
> Like I said, the Scandinavian countries attained the highest standard of living ranking in the 1960s, when they were still very free market oriented and had moderate tax rates, and had just had a century of the best economic growth rates in the world, again with free market economic policies.
As a Scandinavian that is an absolutely ridiculous claim. The free market period is now, with its quickly widening inequality, and the more socialistic period was during the period you claim to be "very free market" oriented.
The evidence contradicts your belief. Scandinavian countries have much higher levels of government spending, as a percentage of GDP, today, than any time before 1965. The majority of that government spending is on social welfare programs.
Of course I would rather live in an advanced economy, but the question is, how does an economy become advanced.
The evidence strongly suggests it's most rapidly achieved through adoption of pro-market policies.
The last 30 years has seen the largest most rapid reduction in the global poverty rate in human history, and almost all the decline in poverty was due to economic development, which economists have concluded was massively facilitated by the spread of market institutions like property rights:
1. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol...
2. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl...
3. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end...
There is no reason to assume that this relationship between pro-market policies and high rates of economic growth stops existing for advanced economies.
We see indications of it manifesting across the developed world, like the superior performance of Hong Kong and Singapore relative to other developed economies, or Iceland relative to other Nordic countries, or in cross-European studies correlating low tax rates with high economic growth rates.
Economic growth is the primary source of all improvements in quality of life, so we should have policies that maximize it. It is how an advanced economy comes to be that way.
And there is no indication, or reason to believe, that economic growth's positive impact on quality of life disappears when economies become advanced. There is a strong correlation between per capita GDP and quality of life, and the reason is obvious: higher productivity gives people greater means to meet their needs.
>>They still have excellent outcomes and high rankings in the HDI and Satisfaction with Life index.
My point is that Hong Kong and Singapore did substantially better than them in improving their metrics.
Like I said, the Scandinavian countries attained the highest standard of living ranking in the 1960s, when they were still very free market oriented and had moderate tax rates, and had just had a century of the best economic growth rates in the world, again with free market economic policies.
Your analysis misattributes the cause of their high standard of living to their current social democratic policies, when all the evidence indicates that it was due to their previously more free market policies.
>>A 99% tax rate on marginal incomes above, say, $10 million, or marginal wealth above $1 billion, would probably not be disastrous, no.
This would be absolutely disastrous. Major companies, that bring in tens of billions in export revenue for the US, and produce groundbreaking innovations for the world, would have been founded and centered outside of the US, or simply never come into existence, with those kinds of disincentives for entrepreneurs and investors in place.