What factors lead to prosperity, progress and human flourish?
The ability to make economic transactions freely ==> global markets where people can fulfill their mutual self interests and capital can migrate to its most economically productive uses. This requires resisting the temptation to meddle with markets to try to engineer some other outcomes. Generally this means the rule of law must strongly protect private property from de facto appropriation by those who would meddle. Societies which adopt such rule, have experienced great prosperity; societies which don’t suffer sub-optimum performance and, in the extreme, true misery. Contrast 20th century prosperity in Communist countries to those of the West. Contrast the economic performance of the United States to that of Western Europe in the last quarter of the century.
