Read some Hernando de Soto: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016146 http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-

Read some Hernando de Soto: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016146 http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Ev... No time to go into depth, and probably won't do it justice, but a good summary would be "Institutions matter". Like it or not, the kind of negative entropy found in the west isn't easy to come by, and trying to build it from nothing most times will fail in strange ways.