Australia squares the circle

I have just put up on Dissecting Leftism a large excerpt from an article which sets out data tending to show that Australia scores very highly both as one of the freest countries in the world and also as one of the most "equal" countries in the world.

This has a huge bearing on Left/Right political controversies. The Left generally argue for more economic equality while conservatives generally argue for more economic liberty.

So what the Australian example shows is that such competing claims are not entirely a zero-sum game. You can at the same time have more of what both Right and Left want. I think that is a finding of very far-reaching implications for other countries, such as the USA. There are already major similarities between Australia and the USA so a convergence on the Australian system by the USA should, at least in theory, be much easier than most other sorts of change.

I think the claim that the USA is an "exceptional" country is so obviously true that it cannot rationally be denied (even if Mr Obama doesn't think so) but it would appear that Australia is another English-speaking country that is exceptional in important ways too.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).