Personally I believe it's culture. A high trust and low corruption society will probably succeed whatever system it uses. It's very very difficult to quantify t

Personally I believe it's culture. A high trust and low corruption society will probably succeed whatever system it uses. It's very very difficult to quantify this or tease out cause and effect. But I really feel like Europeans are more likely to "Do The Right Thing", than Americans or Indians. Like less likely to take a bribe or exploit the system for personal gain. More likely to be outraged when someone is caught doing that. Not perfect, just better. Compare to third world countries which have very low trust and high corruption. Bribes are common in every area of life and no one trusts authorities. It's very difficult for any system to function in a culture like that. Just replacing the government or changing to democracy doesn't seem to help that much, because the underlying culture is the same.