The United States was an extremely wealthy country with exceptional freedom up until the Great Depression. And this was only a short episode in US history.
I think this is a perfect description of capitalist countries, including the US. Of course, they try to give people thousands of perceived options, like what color of car to buy, but in the end everyone needs to abide by rules that are increasingly more coercive.
US citizens, esp those under so called middle class, rank worse than most other western countries. Ya know all those Eurpean socialist ones.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2016/08/us-is-doing-be...