[WalterBright]

My narrative, which nobody seems to notice, is that free markets are the key to prosperity.

> these very good very smart very special White People™

There are many very poor countries run by white people. Any people can decide to become rich by deciding to become free market - like the Japanese after WW2, and Chinese in Hong Kong.

Japan and Hong Kong became very rich from free markets, and no natural resources. Mexico, S America, Africa, etc, are loaded with natural resources yet remain poor.

> terrible governance

Ding ding! A winner!

P.S. Spain never got rich by plundering S. America. That's because they conflated gold and silver with wealth. Real wealth is productive, skilled people using their talents to create things. All Spain got was inflation.

[MeImCounting]

Oh I do agree that often free markets are excellent at producing wealth. This is generally true but not absolutely. Liberal democracies are the most successful and richest countries partially because regulated free markets are the most efficient resource distribution system. Key word regulated free markets. Because unregulated free markets result in the stereotypical oligarchs and corruption, no social services, unemployment and all those type of bad things. Think post-soviet Russia, Chile under Pinochet and others

None of this changes the fact that much of the historical US national wealth can be see as plunder.

[WalterBright]

Russia, etc., were only marginally free markets.