What makes countries rich and poor

    There are rich countries in the world, and poor countries in the world, but why?  This is another question that people don't want to talk about.  Society has had a general answer for this question at different points of history.  If you ask someone this question from the 1800's and prior, they may give you a very uncomfortable answer.  If they had an option, it would likely be, some people are superior to others in breeding.  They believed this in the past, it was a rule of superiority by nature, people were created rich and poor.  Success is because of genetic superiority, according to their mindset.  

    Going into the modern age, people have changed their option of this, which is good in a lot of ways, because it's easier to be at peace with each other if people are viewed as equals.  The idea of some people being born with superior genes to others needed to go, for societies to get along better with each other.  Also it's just not always going to be true, people can sometimes be surprising in their abilities, even if born as poor in a society.  Also how can you really prove who is better or worse, if the law favors some over others.  

    So what is the typical answer, today?  What give one country wealth and the other poverty?  I did some research to find out what people generally now believe.  I found these reasons often mentioned, I used my own words to describe their opinions:

• Countries are poor when powerful people are able to take wealth from the poor.  If the poor attempt to gain wealth, those with power will find a way of taking it.  Wealthy countries have less of this.  Institutions and politics can be setup in a way to counter against people who use their power in a negative way.  
• Countries are poor when they too often have economic shrinkage.  All economies will grow and shrink, but poor economies will shrink too much, and too often.  
• Countries become rich when they have more technology.  Technology is the difference between rich countries and poor countries.
• Education makes the difference.  Some countries have good education and others don't.  Good education will make a country rich.  Those without it are poor.  
• Some people are good at stuff, and other people are not.  There are some people who still hold on to the old idea that people are genetically superior and inferior.  So I included this, however I will inject some doubt right now of this dangerous theory.  I feel like we don't yet understand genetics and human potential like those that believe this theory think we do.  
• Rich countries take advantage of poor countries, extracting resources and labor without rewarding the poor countries enough.  The rich countries make poor countries poor.  

    I don't believe any of these explanations.  They all seem really smartly thought up, but can they really explain all the situations of rich and poor in the cultures of the world?  Pieces of them may be true, but they don't get to the heart of the problem.    

    Here is my theory, and I would remind you, that it's only a theory.  I don't claim that it is correct, but to me, it fits rather well, and it explains what is happening better then anything I have heard or read.  

    

    A country becomes rich from having enough of two things.  So they need both of these things, and enough of each.  If this is true, they are rich, if this is false, they are poor.    

    The two requirements they must have are morality and science.  If a country can have enough morality in enough places, in combination of having enough scientific discipline in enough places, they will gain wealth.  The standard of living will improve for people within the country.  The reaction of this process may take time, because it takes time for people to change.  It takes time for people to learn morality, it takes time for people to learn about the natural world and accept it using the discipline of science.  It's a process that works, but only as well as the people of a country as a whole, can manage to achieve these two requirements.  

    So to understand this, you have to give up on thinking about things as absolutes.  Meaning a country is not perfectly moral, or perfectly scientific.  Rather, it has an amount of morality and science being practiced within it's borders.  This amount needs to be extensive enough in enough places for the effect of wealth to happen.  

    Does this mean that a poor country is immoral?  No, also I don't like to think of a country as immoral, I feel it may be immoral to judge a country as a whole like this.  My theory says you need both science and morality.  So a country with enough morals in enough places may still be poor, without science.  A county with science being practiced in enough places often enough may be lacking in enough morality in enough places, and thus be poor.  

    So the best example of this, is North and South Korea.  North Korea, has science being practiced in their country.  They have educated people, those people can build technology, but they are poor, much poorer then South Korea.  North Korea lacks enough morality.  Notice how I didn't write, "North Korea is immoral".   Maybe their government engages in immoral acts, but many of their people show examples of morality.  Obeying a law, can be an example of morality.  Showing up for work is an example of morality.  Trying your best to accomplish a task is an example of morality.  Treating people with respect is an example of morality.  The North Koreans likely have morality being practiced within their country to each other.  But in enough places it's not being practiced.  An oppressive government that doesn't value it's people, but rather views them only in terms for how they would benefit the few rich within their country.   If there is enough immorality being practiced, then this immorality will cancel out the effects of the morality being practiced, so amount of scientific achievement is enough, this will cause the nation to be poor.   This is an example of immorality that causes a technologically advanced country to be poor.  

    I want to explore what I mean by morality, I will list some examples of morality in a country that would quality it to satisfy this requirement.  

• An inclination towards family togetherness.
• Judicial fairness, having both sides of an issue represented as best as possible.
• Following though with enforcing law, after making laws.
• Sharing with those that are struggling.
• Keeping commitments to an employer.
• Keeping commitments to a customer.  
• Working for wealth, instead of stealing for wealth, or manipulating people to obtain wealth.  
• Providing for children.
• Believing that work is an essential part of living a happy life.
• Believing sacrifice for the good of the country is admirable.
• Valuing people over institutions or government.
• Providing for adults that in some way can't provide for themselves, but without taking away their ability to work.    
• Being ambitious with charity.  
• Honesty.
• Willingly sharing ideas.
• Supporting education.
• Showing kindness in every opportunity.  
• Allowing competition.
• Valuing people even when they fail.  
• Avoiding waste.  
• Stopping people from harming others.  

    Morality is a big subject, even after a whole lifetime of studying morality, there will still be important lessons not yet learned.  None of us will be perfect experts, but it is possible to follow our compassion and empathy to became very morally wise.  Morality like science, isn't something we can decide upon, rather we must discover it.  Some how in the mathematics that governs the universe, kindness becomes an essential part of survival.  We can see evidence in that in ourselves.  If kindness had no purpose why did we humans evolve to have kindness.  Yes, we also can be mean to each other, but it's easy to see that a portion of our natural instincts make us feel sad when others are sad, or feel happy when others are happy.  Even an instinctive reaction to safe the life of a person in trouble.  The whole human race has these instincts.  Morality is part of success, yet it would seem that greed would create success more.  Perhaps to some individuals it may, but for a nation as a whole, it is not greed or lust, or jealously, or hate, but it's not any of those things.  Morality has been a part of every rich culture.  

    This may seem like nonsense, as there are examples of wealth people who were very obviously immoral.  Remember, this theory only applies to a nation, not individuals or subgroups of individuals.  There is a difference between creating wealth, and consuming wealth.  An important note here about this.  Before anyone decides to use this idea to point blame on immoral people, for causing a country to suffer from their immorality.  Think about this, if the point is to be moral, and morality will help your nation, how should you really treat people that are immoral.  What kind of judgement would a moral person do?  If in the end, a person uses this way of thinking to start conflicts within their nation, have they increased the overall morality?  I would advice, teaching, over fighting, and, being a good example, over arguing.   

    Morality makes success possible.  Any time a person commits a moral act, their actions will influence one to many people.  So not only is one moral action good because it's one moral action, but the example it will make for other people, will influence the hearts of others, and lead to more actions.  The more people choose not to steal in a market place, the more the moral believe will become accepted by the community.  It all adds up, and makes an overall community rich with morality. 

      

    In order to be rich with the comforts of wealth, they will also need science.  Here is some examples of science being practice within a country.  

• Supporting conclusions with evidence, rather then opinion.  
• The need to know why things are, rather then to just accept them as they are.
• An interest in discovering the principles that govern the natural world.  
• Conducting scientific experiments just for the hope of learning something new, even if there is no obvious wealth to be gained.
• Engaging in scientific expeditions.  
• An effort not to contaminate samples.  
• Looking to technology to solve problems.  
• Debating scientific conclusions, without needing to be right, but instead hoping to find the truth, even if you don't have the true conclusion.  
• An interest in all disciplines of science, like engineering, mathematics, biology, chemistry, etc...

    These lists will not be including everything that needs to be included.  I hope they can give us a sense of what is needed.  There can be examples of things that are both moral and scientific, like valuing that a technology should be enjoyed by everyone instead of a few.  Henry Ford showed the world a powerful example of how his moral action with technology benefits everyone.  By making automobiles cheaper like never before.  He was not perfectly moral as none of us are, but he did get economics right morally and scientifically, and we are still benefiting from that today.  

    Another really great example is when scientific understanding is combined with the morals of hard work, and a believe in giving good things to people.  With this, we have sewers, roads, power grids, an abundance from factories, etc...  Things make with scientific understanding, but make for everyone, even the poor.  

    There is a villain in this story.  With morality and science being good for us, there is also pseudomorality and pseudoscience.  That is, morality that pretends to be moral, but is not, and science that pretends to be science and is not.  Where morality and science causes a country to be rich, pseudomorality and pseudoscience causes a country to ultimately become poor, but to perhaps create greater disasters because of it.  

    Nazi Germany, was scientifically rich, but some of the believes of the Nazis were based on pseudomorality.  It was this pseudomorality, that caused so much suffering.  The end result of the Nazi rule of Germany is that they brought poverty to their country, and many other nations.  Germany did have some economic gains under the leadership of the Nazis but it couldn't last, eventually the unrealistic and false moral believes would catch up with the country. With pseudomorality, ruin is the result. 

    What about ancient Rome?  They were rich, right?  No, I would argue that Rome as an empire was not rich as it's sometimes thought.  Not when you consider how many slaves lived in the Romain empire, and they where not rich.  So a small class of Romans were very rich, but not the country as a whole.  This theory is for a country as a whole.  However the good the Romans did with morality and science did help them.  The Romans did well with literacy, and engineering.  They build roads and heated buildings.  Their interest in science helped to make them richer.  They did have some amount of morality, in that they had laws that applied to all Roman citizens though out their empire.  They did build public baths to help with sanitation, and everyone could use their roads.  They had a greater understanding of industry then others of their time.  So the amount of science and morality they had, did give them some advantage over other nations, however it didn't result in a good situation for all people within the Roman empire.  It's important to not judge the Romain empire without including the result it had on all the people within it's borders.  

    I will come back to this very important point, this theory does not claim that people who are creating the wealth will be the ones that benefit from it.  In fact for people to take wealth without providing a service for it, is an example of immorality, which will inhibit a country from prospering.  Some people believe that being rich is an act of immorality.  That a rich person takes wealth, and that is the reason why they are rich.  This is not always true.  We have to be careful about generalizing a group of people.  The rich in a country can provide important leadership to a country, and this is moral.  So to judge anyone rich or poor, it's important to judge them individually.  Every country has rich people in it.  Yet come countries are rich and some are poor, to say the rich create poverty really depends on the circumstances within that country, and the behavior of a rich person in question.  It's not one way or the other all the time.  

    

    In a way it's the same with poverty, people must be judge individually, not as a category of people.  The theory doesn't claim that the poor are poor because they are not doing well enough with science and morality.  But it does say that all together in a nation, there is not enough of it, in enough places.  Accusing people of being the problem holding a country back is problematic.  Punishing people without due process and rational laws, is immoral.  So a country will need to treat the poor fairly, in order to get more economic lift from the moral side of this theory. 

    Education is often mentioned as an important part of creating wealth in a society.  This is true, it helps morality, as organization and inclusion is morally good, and it helps scientifically because it improves learning about the natural world and it's guiding principles like the laws of physics.  In the end, a country can have more skilled workers because of this.  However an education system is still a place like all institutions where pseudomorality and pseudoscience can form and spread.  This is a concern, however education can also thwart pseudoscience and pseudomorality.  Learning institutions will need to keep themselves open to ideas, and also allow ideas to be questioned.  This is another example of morality being part of success.  It's important to understand that pseudoscience and pseudomorality can be created with or without an education system, so a country might as well have one, whether it's privately owned or publicly owned, it only needs to practice enough morality and science for it to help with the uplift of the country.  

    I love to ponder about ways someone would disprove this theory.  It's one of my favorite activities, and it can be done anywhere, just with medication.  

    So how I would disprove this theory is to mention some societies have immortals yet still are rich.  First thing to think about, just because you think something is immoral doesn't mean that it is.  This is a very controversial statement, but there is a beauty to it.  What makes something moral, is not our opinion, it comes from a logical side of humanity that has been developing for all of human history.  To understand it, requires lots of experience, and we may never fully understand morality in our lifetime, but it's there.  Morality is when humans make decisions that on their surface appear to conflict with natural selection in evolution, in reality, they hold a higher level of survivability, that is not easy to understand.  Humans in a moral community are more likely to survive then humans in an immoral community.  Because of this, we have moral emotions that govern us in a way that science can't always comprehend.  Biology had mysteries to it, that are beyond our understanding, morality is one of those deep mysteries.  We don't know exactly why we need it, but we do, our emotions tell us so.  Science can only answer a question if it has the answer.  The discipline of science teaches that a conclusion needs reliable evidence.  We don't always have reliable evidence to help us know what is right.  What we will have to do is what is moral, and have faith that it will work out in the best way possible.  There are times when what is best from a scientific point of view, is not best in a moral point of view.   This is why morality is so important to us.  Second, if you look, you will find people in that country working hard, living by some level of morality.  Morality just needs to be practiced in enough places, for this to work.  Third,  Perhaps they are not as immoral as you judge them to be.  we humans can at times be poor judges.    

    To disprove all this, I would also indicate some countries are rich but have so many poor.  Are the poor really poor, or are they still rich in comparison to people in other countries?  In most first world countries, the poor are not poor by the standards of other countries.  If a country has wealth, but also most citizens are still poor, you will find they are still lacking in either morality, or science.   

    Think about the Soviet Union for example.  Many people living in it did experience some wealth and comforts, but not everyone.  People who were imprisoned for their political beliefs lived very poorly.  The Soviet Union had lots of science being practiced in it's population, but with so may laws, the people were depended on the government to supply them with justice and fairness.  People in the Soviet Union didn't prosper in wealth like western capitalist's countries did.  Because of these strict laws, morality was limited.  Remember, a country does not need to be perfectly moral to have success.  However, the more morality they have, the better the process will work, as long as they don't also miss out on science.  The Soviet Union had some success, but not as much as more free societies.  If you are one of the millions of  Soviet Unions citizens in prisoned for supposed political beliefs, then you suffered greatly, this has to be included in assessing a country, how do the poorest of the poor live, and how many of them are there compared to the total population.  

    Another way I would try to disprove this is that it doesn't seem fair.  It makes it sound like when a country is poor it's their fault.  Give up on life being fair, it will just cause you grief each time you are confronted with the reality that life is not fair.  People can't be poor for no reason, people can't be rich for no reason.  All things have a cause and effect.  The only real question is, "is this theory true?"  If we examine an individuals life we will see lots of seemingly random things happening to them, life doesn't seem fair.  If we look at a country as a whole, we will see pattern of causes and effects that are not random, but show how morality and science help to increase wealth for people overall.  This theory doesn't judge individuals, it applies only to a nation as a whole.  A nation can have many moral people, and many scientific people, but if it lacks enough morality and science the result is not within our control.  We as humans have the power of choice, but not the power to choose consequences.  

    One of the major problems in countries attempting to become rich, is that they will pursue one of the two requirements, but not the other.  This will lead to problems.  A scientific country without morals is a danger to the world.  A country that holds on to it's morals, perhaps managements to improve them, but doesn't pursue science, meaning it doesn't train engineers, or doctors, or train people in heavy equipment etc, it will not experience wealth either.  

    Another great criticism, is to point out how rich groups of people within a country that do not have political power, still do well.  Well, again this applies to a country as a whole.  To understand why people are rich and poor within a country is much more complicated.  I may write more about this subject at a later time.       

    Another criticism, is how can this theory account for groups of people within a country that are poor, that share a characteristic like race or religion.  This theory will not prove or disprove why they are poor, to understand that is more complicated.  However if any group doesn't have morality and science like the theory indicates they will not help in uplifting their country into poverty.   I remind you, that it's immoral to judge a person by the group they may represent.  People must be judged individually for the correct moral actions to be made.  

    Yet another great criticism, and my favorite, is to indicate that by saying a country needs enough morality and enough science, will mean that if any country doesn't have success you can always say they are not doing enough.  So the theory is always right, because you can always conclude it's just not being followed enough.   I would answer, we can compare countries together will some success.  Countries have many factors to consider like population and climate, but I believe these are minimal, compared to morality and science.  So we can compare the standard of living from one country to another, and hopefully get a better understanding of how a country is truly doing.   We have to ask the question, what is this country doing with morality and science that another country is not doing.  

    What is the conclusion to all this?  You can't change what other countries do, and ultimately that happens externally, but the good news is that doesn't matter as much as people think it does.  What happens beyond the borders of a country is never as important as what happens within the borders of a country.  If a country improves it's moral, and scientific efforts, while countering pseudomorality and pseudoscience in a moral way, success will come.  It may take time for people to adjust and gain the skills and belief systems they need, but riches will come.  Peace will come, hope will be in supply.  If enough morality and science is used, it is even possible to avoid extremism and understand what happiness is, and obtain it.