Capitalism, Socialism, and the Physical Quality of Life

Abstract

This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development. The World Bank was the principal source of statistical data, which pertained to 123 countries and approximately 97 percent of the world's population. PQL variables included (1) indicators of health, health services, demographic conditions, and nutrition (infant mortality rate, child death rate, life expectancy, crude death rate, crude birth rate, population per physician, population per nursing person, and daily per capita calorie supply); (2) measures of education (adult literacy rate, enrollment in secondary education, and enrollment in higher education); and (3) a composite PQL index. All PQL measures improved as economic development increased. In 30 of 36 comparisons between countries at similar levels of economic development, socialist countries showed more favorable PQL outcomes (p < .05 by two-tailed t-test). This work with the World Bank's raw data included cross-tabulations, analysis of variance, and regression techniques, which all confirmed the same conclusions. The data indicated that the socialist countries generally have achieved better PQL outcomes than the capitalist countries at equivalent levels of economic development.