ethics as well.
Though it is not politically correct to articulate in public,
many people still maintain that Africans are poor because
they lack a good work ethic, still believe in witchcraft and
magic, or resist new Western technologies. Many also
believe that Latin America will never be rich because its
people are intrinsically profligate and impecunious, and
because they suffer from some “Iberian” or “mañana”
culture. Of course, many once believed that the Chinese
culture and Confucian values were inimical to economic
growth, though now the importance of the Chinese work
ethic as the engine of growth in China, Hong Kong, and
Singapore is trumpeted.
Is the culture hypothesis useful for understanding world
inequality? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that social norms,
which are related to culture, matter and can be hard to
change, and they also sometimes support institutional
differences, this book’s explanation for world inequality. But
mostly no, because those aspects of culture often
emphasized—religion, national ethics, African or Latin
values—are just not important for understanding how we
got here and why the inequalities in the world persist. Other
aspects, such as the extent to which people trust each other
or are able to cooperate, are important but they are mostly
an outcome of institutions, not an independent cause.
Let us go back to Nogales. As we noted earlier, many
aspects of culture are the same north and south of the
fence. Nevertheless, there may be some marked
differences in practices, norms, and values, though these
are not causes but outcomes of the two places’ divergent
development paths. For example, in surveys Mexicans
typically say they trust other people less than the citizens of
the United States say they trust others. But it is not a
surprise that Mexicans lack trust when their government
cannot eliminate drug cartels or provide a functioning
unbiased legal system. The same is true with North and
South Korea, as we discuss in the next chapter. The South
is one of the richest countries in the world, while the North
grapples with periodic famine and abject poverty. While
“culture” is very different between the South and the North
today, it played no role in causing the diverging economic
fortunes of these two half nations. The Korean peninsula