This conversation has taken a bit of a turn for the ugly since I was away. I won't say much except that there is no objective measure of what country is best because different people find different things best. It's called opinion. Probably the most scientific thing you could do is poll people on various aspects of their country as well as just a broad, "Do you think your country is the best, great, good, fair," etc. Then you could objectively determine which country most people think is best. But just saying other countries are better because there isn't such an income gap or anything else is your personal opinion of why ours is best. Other countries are largely comprised of much poorer citizens than ours, so their gap wouldn't necessarily be so large. Many countries with less of a gap are also economically less stable and could end up sending many of their people into poverty. My point is not to be partisan, but rather that we end the argument before it gets too bad. I love this country and I personally think it is best, even though I'm poor. But I am proud of our people as a whole and believe that we use the best of humanity with our extremely compassionate nature (there is an objective study on Americans' generosity, if you care to find it--I'm too lazy right now) as well as harnessing the worst of humanity for good (by this, I mean the greed and competition of capitalism are the reason for our economic success). In an optimum relationship between government and private sector, it would maximize both of these with as little intervention as possible, but exactly with as much as necessary of course.