HUMAN CAPABILITIES INDEX
Liberty × Human Development: South Korea
86.4
HCI Score
83
Liberty Score
+3.4
Gap (HCI leads Liberty)
Free & Capable
Quadrant Classification
LIBERTY × HCI: ALL 91 COUNTRIES
CAPABLE AUTOCRACY FREE & CAPABLE NEITHER FREE BUT STRUGGLING LIBERTY SCORE → HCI SCORE → 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 r = 0.619 Saudi Arabia Mali Singapore Somalia Norway South Korea
HCI TRAJECTORY (1800–2023)
0 20 40 60 80 100 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2023 14.0 33.5 86.4 Year HCI Score
KEY INDICATORS — PERCENTILE RANK AMONG 91 COUNTRIES
75th + 50–74th 25–49th Below 25th INDICATOR VALUE RANK 50th Safe Water Access 100 % 100th Electricity Access 100 % 100th Life Expectancy 84 yrs 99th Infant Mortality ↓ 3 /1k 89th Adult Literacy 99 % 88th GDP/Capita (PPP) $41,200 $ 81st Mean Schooling 12.5 yrs 80th Voter Turnout 67 % 59th Life Satisfaction 5.9 /10 53rd Gender Dev. Index 0.950 37th ↓ = lower is better (inverted percentile). Sorted by rank, highest first. Rank among 91 countries.
LIBERTY–CAPABILITY INSIGHT
South Korea exemplifies the liberty-capability equilibrium: an HCI of 86.4 closely matched by a Liberty score of 83 (gap: +3.4). This alignment, visible in the scatter plot's upper-right cluster, represents the theoretical end-state where democratic institutions and human development reinforce each other.
Data: Human Capabilities Index (HCI) — 15 indicators, 91 countries, 1800–2023. Pearson r (Liberty × HCI) = 0.619. Download full dataset (XLSX) · JSON API