I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think this principle ceases to be true once a country gets rich, either--the more fundamental goods the people produce t

I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think this principle ceases to be true once a country gets rich, either--the more fundamental goods the people produce themselves with a focus on maximizing output (food, weapons, textiles, fuel, medicines) the better off the country will be, especially if the people own the land they work on. In many western countries each of these industries has undergone massive monopolization, which in my opinion has driven not only wealth inequality but knowledge inequality--there are now many millions of people who couldn't actually set "the system" up if the oversight vanished because they don't have any real ownership of its components.