Different Paths to the Good Society?

Via someone (probably Marginal Revolution or Yglesias, I forget), here's an interesting discussion at the Money Illusion of a metric for measuring a nation.  His discussion puts disparate countries in the top five, but as he says:

You can’t get much more different than Hong Kong and Denmark, at least by the criteria used by most people on the left and right.  But they all do at least one thing extremely well.  They all are exceptionally good at one of the three attributes of a highly successful neoliberal society.  Either they are highly civic-minded (Denmark, Sweden), or highly aware of the sorts of policies that produce economic efficiency (Singapore, Hong Kong) or highly democratic.  Switzerland had more national referenda in the 20th century than the rest of the world combined.  And it also seems that all three have very good governance.

One of the things which gets me about the more chauvinistic patriots in this country is the lack of recognition of different values and different paths.  I don't like Britain's libel laws, but it's a free country.  I don't like the US's gun laws, but it's a good country.  I don't like France's regimentation in certain areas (see Dirk Beauregarde), but it's a free country.  Governmental institutions are important but so is the nature of the society and the course of the nation's history.