Huarache1

I agree with your concerns, but there's not a lot of economical systems that could quickly make poor societies reasonably wealthy in a short, or sustainable period of time.

I can only really see here, 2 fairly good types of government-economical ties in this world, and both of which are fleetingly rare, with only one type actually growing consistently.

I would say they are, in no particular order, the "East Asian Values" model as created/noted by Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, and the Mondragon Corporation by Father José María Arizmendiarrieta.

The "East Asian Values" model is often used for Singaporean or Chinese style state capitalism, but the Japanese and Koreans have also had a similar economies, and Taipei has flirted with some part of it through TSMC (although they don't own the company outright). This model is pretty good for getting a country rich somewhat quickly, but it does implicate a strong central government. They also tend to have a more Georgist type of tax system (which I think is generally not a bad idea to allow more wealth creation).

The Mondragon Corp on the other hand, while technically a private sector business, it's a full Co-op owned by the workers themselves and has a lot of relations with the Spanish Government. This arguably is the less "exploitative" type of government-economical system, but it also implicates a semi-homogenous society, at least one high trust enough to reasonably and responsibly manage a co-op, even in the most rural areas of Basque Spain. The only other similar economies, perhaps are the Ayllu system in Peru, tequio in Mexico, or other often informal collectivist (but certainly not communist) systems. (This could also pair well with general Neo-Distributism, and Georgism).

It should be noted however, that although the Basques were extremely poor, Spain was still a European society, and as such, did commit a lot of gunboat exploitative economies, most notably the conquest of the Americas.

Wealth creation, by definition, is somewhat exploitative. The good news, is that this type of exploitation therefore, unlike colonialism, actually gives a lot of power to the exploited over time as wealth is created.

My (mostly indigenous) grandparents were lucky to have worked in factories in order to escape farm life, but there were multiple close calls. I imagine it's something similar with all Industrializing societies, wherein a nation commits to an almost Faustian bargain of getting wealth at the cost of brutal working hours. But at some point, "Fordist" thinking prevails, where people either through protests, unions, and also to increase overall economic consumption, people get paid more, they start to live more comfortable lives as many begin to focus on skilled labor and intellectual work. It's not a simple overnight process, but wealth creation does imply first-world like living conditions might come fairly soon to a lot of nations, especially those that started in mass production based factories.

When everything is either extremely anodyne or extremely provocative, you have follow one line OR the other to a T, with absolutely no inbetween.

So if you're writing about "cute" racoons in a relationship, either they have to be the most ragebaity, most anger inducing, most obnoxious stereotypes of people like Lesbian Space Princess, or be 100% Bland and show absolutely no nudity, no relationships, and just be blank slate cute racoons. Ironically, only being 50% committed to some ideology is the new Bland.

It works both ways too, see the Instagram Comments section, or even just Instagram.

Europe looks a bit like the sick man of Europe. Only a few nations seem to be doing well, like Poland, Ireland, maybe Spain?

But Spain is lacking jobs, and so are most European countries. The heavyweights of France and Germany aren't doing so well either.

Low pay is partially a reason why people have off-shored their industries there. If the government is somewhat competent, they can use the increased amount of funds to get more investors, build more infrastructure, attract more people (workers, investors, even tourists) until the nation becomes wealthy enough that it's essentially first world in all but name.

Like Japan in the 80s, or Korea in the 2000s, Poland currently. It's a slow and painful process, but given a good enough government such as Singapore, it's possible to grind your way into a fairly well developed society given punitive laws, good infrastructure and public services, and a massive emphasis on intelligence.

Remember that not too long ago, children worked in factories in Britain and other developed countries, but they got rich enough to ban children from working so they would study for higher paid, intellectually challenging jobs.

That is the Decline of Assabiyyah or Social Cohesion.

In multi-Ethnic nations, the solution is to forcibly move different ethnic groups with each other, as noted by Singapore's LKY, to prevent Diasporaic cultures from forming. But the Belgians didn't have to be a multi-ethnic society, nor do the natives seem to tolerate that. It really depends on the society and its willingness to do so.

If Western Civilization prides itself on classically liberal freedoms, it cannot claim to do so while limiting them, especially for the sake of religion which is antithetical to the French forefathers of classical liberalism. The right to be "Free" from all religion is given, and therefore speech must be stronger than the right to practice any religion.

It's classically liberal to allow anyone to follow their religion, it's not classically liberal to restrict freedom of speech for the sake of religion, much less for the sake of a foreign religion.

You're thinking of the Aztecs, who had some of the most well organized, cleanest cities in the world, despite brutal sacrifices which replaced death in warfare. It's an odd paradox noted by the Spanish. It's like hearing how the Vikings cleaned themselves obsessively before viciously going to raiding campaigns.

The Maya, despite the Spanish, still exist today. You can even eat their foods, like Poc Chuuc, Xec salad, Tikin Xic, Cochinitas Pibil, Sikil Pak, etc.

Currently? Maybe in the close past, El Salvador has never been better in all of its history as a state.

It still needs more investment in education and companies, but besides that it's doing very well.

In no particular order:

Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. (Highly recommended)

A Fire Upon the Deep (Either you like the Tines or the Skroderiders)

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Borges (Is reality imbued with our ideas?)

Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard (Not unlike "the Greeks" of modern fic)

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (perhaps the first true modern fic)

Understand by Ted Chiang (Most of his short stories are good, or provoking)

Xeethra and the Zothique Cycle by Clark Ashton Smith

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

*inferior to industrialized versions of ancient cultures. The Victorians essentially gave up all sense of their medieval culture (Longbowmen and archer traditions, Yeoman farmers) for immense wealth and new luxuries (Tea, tea houses, Opium, and lots of parties).

This led to their decline within 200 years, compared to China or the Roman Empire. The Chinese had to deal with the incompetent Qing, but luckily they survived as a culture, and learned a lot from Deng Xiaoping.

Countries in their industrial era are quite literally not unlike third world countries.

England at its Victorian era looks like an overpowered Brazil than anything even close resembling the US now.

The Brits weaponized their most intelligent, and made them work for the crown.

That being said, mercantile navy based nations never really last beyond a few hundred years compared to the nations near the Steppe.

From the /pol/ meet ups, you could see pics were everyone was brown. Latinos, Indian Migrants, Middle Easterners, Mixed Race people, etc.

And if they weren't brown, they had some disability or even different sexuality.

I'm not racist, but I am brown.