Human development vs. liberty

An idea popped into my head while someone in another thread argued that socialism is a threat to freedom. Here, I'd like to compare the Human Development Index from the United Nations in 2009 to the State of World Liberty Index from 2006.

The State of World Liberty Index (WLI) is a ranking of countries according to the degree of economic and personal freedoms which their citizens enjoy; each country is given a score between 0 and 100. The Index defines freedom as "the ability for the individual to live their lives as they choose, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same."

Source

1 Estonia (38 HDI, considered developing)
2 Ireland
3 Canada
4 Switzerland
5 Iceland
6 Bahamas (52 HDI, considered developing)
7 United States (13 HDI)
8 United Kingdom (21 HDI)
9 Cyprus (32 HDI)
10 New Zealand (20 HDI)

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an under-developed country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life.

Source

1 Norway (31 WLI)
2 Australia (13 WLI)
3 Iceland
4 Canada
5 Ireland
6 Netherlands (19 WLI)
7 Sweden (33 WLI)
8 France (48 WLI)
9 Switzerland
10 Japan (35 WLI)

So given the top ten most free nations on earth and the top ten highest in human development, what is your take?

To me it would appear that socialism leads to less freedom while conversely more freedom leads to lower human development. Unless you manage to find the happy in between which four nations on both lists managed to do.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Is first place a positive or a negative place to be at ?
I seem to mis it !

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


First place is good.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas




I'm from the Netherlands and I see 6 Netherlands (19 WLI)
and 19 Netherlands ( 2 HDI )

It seems odd.
Do you maybe have switched HDI and WLI. ?
The source is also switched I think.

I think it's an interesting thread tho. To bad it isn't coming of the ground.

I see in my country a lot of people dying young. What IMO isn't that weird at all. People who are living up to 80 or even 100 years have about half of their lives lived, breathing fresher air, before the first nuclear tests took place and before it became big business to gain profit on health.

Our life expectancy has recently being raised a few years.
I would like to know what others experience.