Archived Articles

Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

Global Real Estate Project
News Index

Directories
  Int'l Realty
  US Realty

At last we have a comparative study, taking into account the political liberties as vital part of our quality of life. The London-based Economist magazine has released its list of best countries to live in 2005 following the quality of life as they see it. Integrating many purely economic and non-economic criteria, the authors of the study have reached conclusion that Ireland will be the place No.1 in the next 12 months. Without many surprises, the Scandinavian countries as well as the countries from Western Europe, North America and Australia form the top of the list, followed closely by the most developed Asian nations. Latin America in general is in the middle of the list. Russia and most African nations are at the bottom.

What makes this index so interesting and what makes us so glad about it, is the integration of the political liberties as one of the main components into equilibrium. Usually such component is missing, although people in free countries produce most of these comparative studies. It seems that for people that have been born free the freedom itself isn't so important being mistakenly considered as natural and granted. You must have been born and grown up in a society without any inherent political or social rights attached to you to begin truly appreciate your right to vote, and to criticize your government. Some authoritarian countries, particularly those with huge oil and natural gas reserves do extremely well in keeping high purchasing power. To consider these countries equal in terms of quality of life to those that provide the same purchasing power plus basic freedoms will be unfair.

Another criterion I was glad to notice is the personal perception of the respondents. Usually in order to look scientific and unbiased we try not to consider what impact our policies have on ordinary men. Thus the human beings are reduced to no more than very primitive economic agents, which become (un) happy to the degree of material satisfaction. In fact the material world far from making us equally (un) happy makes only clearer our perceptional differences. For some getting out of the vicious circles of biological survival is tantamount to happiness. For others the truth is just the opposite.

Third point that is particularly important in this study, which can't be found very often in other studies, is the climate as factor in the quality of life. Sometimes this factor can influence our lives so much as to the point to make inhabitable many parts of the world like North Canada, large parts of Siberia, and the deserts. Without taking into account this factor countries like Canada and Russia would have been higher in the general ranking. Unfortunately the climate is the thing we can do least to improve or change. Nevertheless we should acknowledge its importance and not try to minimize it in favor of more manageable factors.

Last but not least, the new study pays respect to some traditional values that are usually discarded as unimportant, such as the family unity. Perhaps this was the last drop that put Ireland ahead of the list. It's needless to point out at the salience of these factors that usually have nothing to do with our material well-being. To sum up, this was very useful comparative study that should be taken into account by both foreign investors and national governments.