The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is hardly a hotbed of free-market thought. So it is particularly remarkable that the OECD has just released new figures on per capita gross dometic product and per capita consumption.

The latter data, for AIC (“actual individual consumption”), are especially interesting since they allow comparisons of living standards across nations. For the 30 member nations of the OECD, the United States is second, with per capita consumption that is 152 percent of the OECD average, trailing only the small tax haven of Luxembourg.

Europe’s major welfare states, by contrast, do not fare so well. France is at 106, Sweden at 104, and Germany at 103, meaning that their living standards are only about 70 percent of U.S. levels.

The report also has data for both 2002 and 2005. During that period, Iceland enjoyed the biggest increase in living standards, climbing from 113 percent of the OECD average to 128 percent of the average. Not coincidentally, Iceland has been lowering tax rates and reducing the burden of government.