How culture feeds into the poverty trap
Why are some countries wealthy while others seem doomed to eternal poverty?
How culture feeds into the poverty trap
Robert Samuelson
The Washington Post
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Why are some countries wealthy while others seem doomed to eternal poverty? asked Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post. For a long time, most economists argued that any society could “nurture economic growth by adopting sound policies.” But now economist Gregory Clark has mounted a strong argument that culture is the determining factor. In his new book, A Farewell to Alms, “Clark suggests that much of the world’s remaining poverty is semi-permanent.” Some societies, he says, simply lack the “bedrock values” that lead to growth and rising living standards. He notes that in the early 1800s, China, Japan, and England all enjoyed political stability, low taxes, and open markets. Yet England—not China or Japan—was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. What made England different? Clark says it was that country’s “middle-class values of patience, hard work, ingenuity, innovativeness, and education.” Other societies, he says, are “dominated by tribal, religious, ideological, or political values” that can impede economic development. Historians might take issue with some of Clark’s assertions, but there’s no disputing his broader point: “Culture counts.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Music reviews: Bon Iver, Valerie June, and The Waterboys
Feature "Sable, Fable," "Owls, Omens, and Oracles," "Life, Death, and Dennis Hopper"
By The Week US
-
Are bonds worth investing in?
the explainer They can diversify your portfolio and tend to be a safer investment than stocks
By Becca Stanek, The Week US
-
Elon has his 'Legion.' How will Republicans encourage other Americans to have babies?
Today's Big Question The pronatalist movement finds itself in power
By Joel Mathis, The Week US
-
Issue of the week: Who killed the Twinkie?
feature The seemingly imperishable Twinkie has finally met its match, and its name is Big Labor.
By The Week Staff
-
Issue of the week: Apple’s patent victory over Samsung
feature Apple's “sweeping victory” is among the biggest intellectual-property triumphs on record.
By The Week Staff
-
Issue of the week: Goldman Sachs’s ‘toxic’ culture
feature Greg Smith’s stinging public resignation from Goldman Sachs landed on Wall Street “like a bomb.”
By The Week Staff
-
Issue of the week: Can a mortgage deal revive housing?
feature Five big banks reached a settlement with state and federal officials to pay $26 billion to offset some of the damage caused by their misdeeds in the foreclosure crisis.
By The Week Staff
-
Issue of the week: Europe gets downgraded
feature Standard & Poor's lowered the credit rating for nine European nations, indicating that Europe has not yet convincingly dealt with the debt crisis.
By The Week Staff
-
Tom Toles: Cartoonist of the Year
feature Meet the winner of The Week's Cartoonist of the Year award
By The Week Staff
-
Cartoonist of the Year finalists
feature A brief look at this year's nominees
By The Week Staff
-
Issue of the week: Calling out the crash’s culprits
feature The Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has just published its 635-page report on the financial crisis.
By The Week Staff