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what country is closest to a conservative utopia?

As someone left of center, I can say that the Euro-socialist countries of Northern Europe roughly strike the right balance between providing a social safety net and tools for upward mobility on the one hand and allowing people to profit from hard work, smart investment, or innovation on the other. By contrast, most of the places I can think of that practice low taxes on the wealthy, weak labor laws and weak environmental and other regulations are mostly in the Third World, provide a very nice standard of living for a few people who live in gated communities, and everyone else lives in cardboard boxes in slums with nearly NO chance of upward mobility. Some will point to Hong Kong or Switzerland, but while Switzerland doesn't have socialized medicine and instead makes you buy insurance, they do have price controls that result in the Swiss paying a third as much as Americans. Price controls aren't exactly conservative. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/37544.php Kris, Good points on Guatamala, but I'd question their "choice" back in the 50s, they elected a president who tried to do land reform by buying unused land from large plantations for the value they declared on their taxes (which of course the owners lowballed). For his trouble, we backed a coup and he was chased out of office. Since then, the US has backed a string of right wing strong men and death squads, so their choice has been influenced by a gun to their heads.

Public Comments

1. Saudi Arabia. Very very conservative.
2. Hong Kong. Most capitalist place on Earth. The top income bracket pays 17% taxes. http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2005/08/10/Opinion/Distilled.Capitalism.In.Hong.Kong-966403.shtml
3. Then is isn't so much as being left or right as so much between rich and poor.Or wether U want your country to be a banana/plantation republic or just a tourist mecca for the first world folks. Or wether one's nation truly wants to develop and modernize their economies. So compare a country like Guatemala who intentionally chooses to be a plantation for U.S. interests or like South Korea say,who,despite being one of the poorest countries in the world 4 decades ago,now,thanks to self-directed development,now has a per capita approaching that of where Spain is nowadays.
4. Russia.
5. You're talking about Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark all with tax as % of GDP in the 44-50% range. To me that is not balanced even with the relatively low tax rates on capital investment by business. There are many places with relatively low income tax rates on all citizens, not just the wealthy. And they don't have lax labor laws or weak environmental regulations. I'm talking about countries like Australia, Japan and Ireland. For me these countries have the best balance and politically all lean centre right.
6. America is your Utopia. The CIA even goes into those third world counties does the physc ops thing brings down it's local junta trained at fort pendelton or fort Bragg, slaughters all the social workers teachers, priest, intellectuals, free thinkers, sends for the new Harvard trained dictator. Dictator follows Friedman's school of economics, though instead of flat tax new American foreigners pay no tax. Privatize state water, electricty, oil, raise prices above what more then half the population can pay. Their legally elected government used to make sure everybody had the basics to sustain life, but wealthy foreign Americans find nothing wrong taking all by murder and force build some Starbucks, McDonald's most of the population now reduced to cardboard box 2 feet from river of open sewage. The American press always tells public back home (until 1989 then their cover blew ) evil commies running around South American Countries, probably under Castro's orders. Funny those Soviets building Coca cola plants, McDonald's KFC,Kodak and such tell me Mr. looking for Conservative utopia Why do they hate us?...Mary.