What Makes a Nation Great?
I offer the idea that a country’s greatness depends on the spiritual, mental, and physical health of its people, which determines its culture. Another big factor is how it manages its natural resources and economy, and its ability to defend its people and its allies.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
I offer the idea a country’s culture is reflected in how it respects life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or property ownership. This seems to be a great foundational formula for any organization. Also important is how the people accept responsibility, how they feel about themselves and the institutions in the country, and how other countries feel about them.
I offer the idea that the belief in God can help communities and countries to respect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The United States of America’s Declaration of Independence references “Nature’s God” in multiple ways.
There happens to be some nonprofit organizations that rate countries according to their life (life expectancy, education, and standard of living), liberty, and happiness.
Life
Considering how countries value life, the United Nations Development Program rates countries on what they call the Human Development Index considering the life expectancy, education, and standard of living. They also publish a report on their research.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI
Liberty
Considering how countries value liberty, the Cato Institute rates countries by freedoms. The Freedom House also rates countries by freedoms. Each of these organizations create a report on their freedom ratings. The Freedom House even claims the data shows that more countries are declining in freedoms than are increasing in freedoms over the past 18 years.
Pursuit of Happiness
Considering how countries value the pursuit of happiness, or truth, integrity, and fairness, Transparency International rates countries by lack of corruption, or a Corruption Perception Index.
Other Important Factors
Considering how people feel about themselves, the World Happiness Report rates countries according to how happy their people are. Not surprisingly, the countries that score high in freedoms and human development, and low in corruption, score high in happiness.
https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/social-environments-for-world-happiness/
Considering how people trust other people in their country, Our World in Data has some information about it.
https://ourworldindata.org/trust
Considering how people trust their institutions, the Edelman Trust Barometer shows how people trust their governments and businesses.
Considering how countries manage their economy, the World Population Review, and the World Economics websites provide stats on different countries by their GDP to debt ratio (a reflection of how they manage their income and expenses).
https://www.worldeconomics.com/Debt/
Last but not least. Considering a country’s ability to defend its people and its allies, Global Firepower ranks countries by their military strength.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php
I offer the idea that there are many great countries. While all have the capacity to be great, it seems that it is a reasonable and respectful responsibility to at least be good.
Of course, those website references could have some bias, whether conscious or subconscious. We all have bias, the question is, where, how much, and what are we doing to avoid it? On the flip side of the coin, those website references might be very accurate.
I understand there are dangers when comparing with others, however, if we can do so with some courage and humility, I believe we can learn from it. It is human nature to want to improve, and to respect hard work and excellence. This is a key reason why sports, arts, and science are so competitive and admired, and have so many different annual awards.
It seems that many countries in the world are about to have shrinking populations, if they do not already. It seems that population growth and economy growth help cover up or smooth out problems in a country, similar to how rising income can help with problems in families and businesses.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/
If the future population and economic growth of our country is about to level out or start decreasing in the years to come, we might want to get more serious about improving our country’s health? I offer the idea that improving any country, or community, starts with individual growth. Healthy organizations are built by respectful and reasonable people who accept responsibility for their growth and the growth of the organization.