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Notes -
I misread the comment and assumed we were talking about the races on a global scale.
Why do you think east Asia was significantly poorer and more underdeveloped than Europe for so long if east Asians really have more "raw" intelligence (g or whatever) than Europeans? What do you think the barrier was in that case; why did they need to adop European tech and institutions rather than developing their own equivalent (or superior) ones?
Re: “European” tech and institutions:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/
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Markets work if they aren’t strangled and the Industrial Revolution didn’t arrive everywhere the same way.
Japan was closed off, then it rapidly industrialized, then after WWII it rebuilt and became a juggernaut until an aging population slowed things down.
China and Korea had a real bloody time of it. Then South Korea was able to rapidly grow with US protection and eventuality China loosened up on the central planning and also made significant gains. North Korea remains a basket case.
Now we see if they can possibly do anything to avoid population collapse…
Well you're saying that East Asians abandoned inefficient economic policies and adopted the efficient ones of Europeans, but that's besides the point. If you accept the premises that inborn genetic ability (however it is measured) is the primary determinant of national prosperity, and that Asians are equal to or higher than Europeans in measured ability, then it becomes strange that East Asians had to play "catch-up" at all. Why was it the Europeans who in the first place developed the technology and industry necessary to generate unprecedented wealth?
Luck matters.
History is full of strange contingencies and many books have been written trying to explain why the scientific and industrial revolutions took place in Western Europe and not somewhere else. Britain having easily accessible coal was pretty important, for example. Lots of people believe Christianity had important cultural effects that led to intellectual and economic freedom and the resulting innovation.
The correlation in modern times between national IQ and wealth is a modern correlation. Inborn ability can be constrained from reaching its potential by the environment. China is still hobbled by bad policy and underperforms its potential, as is North Korea.
Right.
IQ tests didn't exist prior to the 20th century so it's hard to say whether the correlation is a recent development or not.
The measured correlation is obviously a modern development because before then we didn’t measure it.
But also having knowledge economies is a modern thing. A genius farmer in the days of yore couldn’t leverage his intellect like a genius investor or programmer or general white-collar professional can. The gains from intelligence are much higher now than in the past, as is the gap in wealth between countries.
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