[namaria]

No, it's not special people that develop civilization. Civilization development is a higher order phenomenon that doesn't depend on personalities. The Whig narrative that special personalities drive development is a post hoc explanation with no basis in evidence.

[jacobr1]

The narratives around how such cultural traits evolve is not clear, and I agree are unlikely to be the post-hoc rationalization of "Great Men" setting them up.

Yet there do seem to be some traits that enable more "success" in at least something close to industrial, market-oriented societies. For example having a high-trust or risk-tolerant cultural values seems to have some success correlations.