To legitimately make the point Tom and his source are trying to make you would compare the degree of socialization and regulation in developed democracies with their economic growth rates and other measures of quality of life. You would also have to inlude China into the model to explain how a country can have an extremely high rate of growth with a high degree of government control. Studies like the one Tom sites are so laughably biased (cherry picking data with false linkages) and brain dead that I distrust these sources even more than I distrust the main stream press. This stuff is for intellectuals like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

Regards,
Mark