You raise some excellent points. > What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? I think societies don't become f

You raise some excellent points. > What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? I think societies don't become free before they get prosperous. Having lived in dirt poor societies and posh societies, individual freedoms culturally seem to have a strong tie to prosperity. When you are so inter dependent for survival on your social network, the concept of freedom or individual dignity seems so distant. When everyone has more than enough resources for their own prosperous survival, the individual freedoms come to the forefront. Another problem is that countries and societies are almost always resistant to change in absence of a large event. It took WW1 to get women voting rights (and several other social changes) in the west for example. Sadly there is no magic potion to transform societies in absence of large scale events or them lucking out on a good dictator (LKY, Deng) > How do you change a culture that in some ways doesn't want to change? I think across history I find only two ways this happens, either very very slowly, or strongly pushed top down by an authority with the power and willingness to enforce.