Compare economies with high degree of economic freedom to the ones with low.
Like Somalia (high) and Norway (low)?
South Korea too was a dictatorship for most of its existence. Why it became a democracy and North Korea not? Why did South Korea succeed in the field of economic growth while North Korea failed despite the fact that initially the North had the better economy? Free markets.
But South Korea was a succession of dictatorships with periods of instability and riots and military coups, not a single regime with the leadership position being handed down along family lines the way North Korea is. None of South Korea's governments ever had the total political control over everything that North Korea's government achieved. South Korea's dictators had to deal with opposition politicians and protests from time to time. In North Korea there isn't an opposition because if there is, whichever Kim is in charge at the time has them all killed.
Nonsense. Under the "fascists" (they were not fascists) dictators Greece had a rate of economic growth comparable to Japan and Germany. You know when this ended? When in 1981 the socialists came to power. Debt skyrocketed from 20% to 90% of GDP in less than 8 years. Factories closed because of the socialist legislation passed and the labor unions became all powerful corrupt organizations.
Seriously? A right-wing dictatorship (fine, military dictatorship, not fascist dictatorship, not that there's a big difference between those) is better than a left-wing democracy because... economic growth and national debt? Does having a more open political system and more individual freedom not count for anything?
As for austerity measures, they do not force the poor to pay for the rich; they force those who work in the private sector to fund through overtaxation an overgrown public sector. The problem with Greece is the lack of cut of public spending and real reform. The leftist government of Tsipras overtaxes the people not because the North says so, but in order to preserve his political clients in the public sector.
Austerity means "less public spending" not "lack of less public spending." The austerity measures the EU keeps pushing for tend to be the cut spending/maybe also cut taxes type that disproportionately harm the poor.
Before Deng Xiaoping China was a hellhole in which millions of peoples died in utterly catastrophic centrally planned economic projects.
I wasn't arguing against that. Mao Zedong was a crappy leader; most authoritarians are crappy leaders.
The individual still has more freedom: compare average US citizen with average USSR one in the 1980's or US citizen with North Koreans nowadays.
Again, there's a lot more differences between those situations than just economics. The US has lots of political and individual freedom that the 1980's USSR and today's North Korea don't even come close to.
I've got a better one: Who has more freedom, the average Saudi Arabian citizen today or the average Swedish citizen today? Or how about we compare Afghanistan and Denmark? Or the UAE and Japan?
After all, the Arab gulf states generally have lots of economic freedom, as long as you're one of the rich people who owns all the Oil and not one of the migrant workers who has to process the oil or build stadiums for Qatar for low pay in long hours in horrid conditions.
Tax breaks foster economic growth as they allow companies to have more money to invest in the economy.
You can tell me that all you want, but the last thirty-five years have conclusively shown that no, they don't invest more money into the economy if they get tax breaks, they just stash it in the Cayman Islands so they can get even more money for themselves. They don't create jobs out of the goodness of their hearts, they create jobs because they need someone to do a particular job. If they already have all the workers they need, they're not going to hire more or pay the ones they already have more just because they can afford to. They'll keep that money for themselves, because they can.
Do not see why one should be prevented from enjoying life with his money. Rich people do not own anything to the poor ones (and the reverse is true too). All citizens must pay as much tax as absolutely necessary so that the state can function and no more. Taxation in order to enforce income distribution is common thievery.
But how does a rich person make that fortune in the first place without poor workers working for the company they own, making that company lots of money, the majority of which will go to the rich owner purely because they own it? Or maybe they're not the owner, just someone high up, who oversees and manages the company but doesn't do most of the actual labor, and yet they make 1000x as much as the laborers make. And they also need poor consumers to actually buy their products.
Nobody is an island. Everyone depends on everyone else, and everyone should get a fair share.
I myself support a flat tax of 15% with negative income tax replacing government welfare programs.
Again, a flat tax is inherently going to hurt the poor more than the rich. A poor person has to spend nearly all of their income on food and rent and other expenses that they need to survive, they can't afford to pay a high tax rate. For a rich person, these basic survival expenses are a tiny portion of their budget, and they can spend the rest on investments or luxuries. They can afford to pay a higher tax rate.
And like you said, everyone should pay as much tax as absolutely necessary so that the state can function, right? Well, the state needs a lot of money to function, and because of that, it's "absolutely necessary" that those who have more to contribute contribute more than those have less.
