[Retric]

Focusing on 'Culture' is blinding you to what's going on. Tribal cultures are inherently economically inferior due to scaling issues. Western culture is not the only way forward, but the limitation is not the specific ideas, but rather the level of organizational structure.

Stable and mature underground economy's for example operate based on reputation not just tribe. As allegiance to even arbitrary tribes (crips vs bloods) limits commerce. Nation states are arbitrary and transitory, however when larger groups of people limit us vs. them to those outside the nation the internal economy's has fewer self imposed barriers.

PS: China demonstrates other failure points, but as a very non western culture they still show the same trends.