> But when it comes to national cultures we pretend that they're all comparable and all equally good. They are not. I think it’s less about culture as people c

> But when it comes to national cultures we pretend that they're all comparable and all equally good. They are not. I think it’s less about culture as people commonly think, i.e., dancing, music, food, clothes, stories, religion etc. The cultural aspects which help or hinder societies are related to core beliefs (which religion may have some hand in forming, but not necessarily), philosophies and values passed across generations. Religion is the confounding factor of cultural impact, but notice there are countries with similar religions and histories, and dissimilar outcomes. For this reason, I don’t blame the people who live in any one place because they were randomly born there without any choice. I blame the politicians and elites in their society who are responsible for shaping those parts of the culture which get distilled down to practical and actionable aspects on a day-to-day basis for other leaders, or people who are doing core work which impacts their economy. Really, the development of such ideas and beliefs have all really been about how to deal with and navigate uncertainty. It also really doesn’t matter how conscientious your people are (they mostly are, almost everywhere) if the leaders are inept or incompetent or corrupt. But yes, there’s a baseline level of “corruption” in almost every country, what matters is where that baseline level is relative to other places.