I found this presentation at Kite & Key interesting and thought-provoking:
In Papua New Guinea, the national wealth averages out to about $3,500 per person per year. In Australia, it averages out to around $65,000 per person per year.iv Two-and-a-half miles apart … and nearly 20 times wealthier.
How does this kind of thing happen? Actually, we know the answer.
Because it turns out that the secret to how nations get wealthy … isn’t really a secret at all.
The point they’re trying to make is that economic freedom makes countries wealthy or, at least, wealthier.
I’m not convinced. For one thing it’s unclear to me why the logic isn’t reversed, i.e. do countries choose more economic freedom as they become wealthier?
Or maybe it’s something entirely different. For example, judging by the maps they show, isn’t having been a British colony, preferably a British colony with a mostly European population, a pretty good explanation?
Here’s another: maybe the explanation is the primacy of the absolute nuclear family. That brings the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Norway all together under the same umbrella.
There are a number of reasons for my doubts but they can generally be summed up in this question. If economic freedom makes a country wealthy and U. S. economic freedom was greater in 1900 than it is now, why wasn’t the U. S. wealthier in 1900 than it is now?
To me, economic freedom means the right to own and keep property and the legal system to have that have that right protected.
Given these preconditions, wealth accumulation still takes time.
“If economic freedom makes a country wealthy and U. S. economic freedom was greater in 1900 than it is now, why wasn’t the U. S. wealthier in 1900 than it is now?”
I assume that was tongue in cheek. On the narrow issue, the better question to ask is how much more wealthy would we have been had US economic freedom not declined?
In any event, never discount, as you point out, the role of personal attributes.