>>Do you want to try and draw the line from investing in people to reduce poverty, sickness, deprivation and starvation to the downfall of the West and rise of

>>Do you want to try and draw the line from investing in people to reduce poverty, sickness, deprivation and starvation to the downfall of the West and rise of totalitarianism? I'm not seeing it. Central economic planning is inefficient. China learned that, and embarked on massive market reforms in 1979: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform As for "investing in people to reduce poverty" etc, in the long-term, people develop their own personal safety nets in a society without a government-sponsored safety net. Economists have studied this phenomenon, and found that societies with low government social welfare spending levels, like many East Asian countries, have high personal savings rates and extended-family-based support networks. This is what you want. You do not want the safety net to be provided by a centralized authority. That creates a fragile economy, like the USSR's, where after the state's bankruptcy and subsequent dissolution, millions who had grown dependent on its safety net died of privation. The incentives are also much much better for productivity when you don't have formulaic and unconditional social support that people can abuse: "you can eat every day and eat well without spending money, then you can use your money to buy your drugs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyhITqVAugI&feature=youtu.be&t=85 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyhITqVAugI&feature=youtu.be... >>How do unions and regulations even explain corrupt prosecutors, which existed back at the start of your graph, as well as for thousands of years before? As the laws/regulations become more complex, they become easier to run afoul of, and the easier it is for a corrupt prosecutor to find an excuse to persecute someone: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state." - Tacitus As regulatory institutions become larger, and more complex, they also become harder for the electorate to keep accountable. They develop their own "institutional interests", which economist Thomas Sowell gives an example of here: https://youtu.be/uiYH66HznW0?t=410 https://youtu.be/uiYH66HznW0?t=410