Robert Samuelson, in the opinion section of today’s Charlotte Observer, argues that a society’s culture, and not its policies, determine its economic success. This “prosperity predestination” assures that some cultures will always remain in poverty. While it’s true that poverty will always exist, depending on how its defined, it is not the case that a society’s culture is the lone, or even the major, reason for impoverishment. Nor is it because of a country’s policies, alone, either.
A society’s economic success is determined by free individuals interacting with each other to their individual benefit. Trying to decide if it’s the policies or the cultures that starts this process is a proverbial chick ‘n egg argument. In the West, a series of events spontaneously lead to economic growth. Along with these events, came changes that reinforced our capitalistic mentality, both culturally and political.
Trying to pick either policy or culture in figuring economic winners is just wrongheaded. Simply grafting policy onto a society will not work. Individual decisions made without coercion are the best way to foster economic success. This allows cultures to change as policies change — both feeding into the other, to the success of the whole.
