Wealth and the Culture of Nations
The central tenet that today's economists attribute to Adam Smith – that good incentives, regardless of culture, produce good results – is wrong. History shows that culture, not institutions, determines whether and when poor societies grow rich.
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Modern economists have turned Adam Smith into a prophet, just as Communist regimes once deified Karl Marx. The central tenet they attribute to Smith – that good incentives, regardless of culture, produce good results – has become the great commandment of economics. Yet that view is a mistaken interpretation of history (and probably a mistaken reading of Smith).