Different histories, geography, demography and cultures have left various groups, races, nations and civilizations with radically different abilities to create wealth.

In centuries past, the majority population of various cities in Eastern Europe consisted of people from Western Europe — Germans, Jews and others — while the vast majority of the population in the surrounding countrysides were Slavs or other indigenous peoples of the region.

Just as Western Europe was — and is — more prosperous than Eastern Europe, so Western Europeans living in Eastern European cities in centuries past were more prosperous than the Slavs and others living in the countrysides, or even in the same cities.

One of the historic advantages of Western Europe was that it was conquered by the Romans in ancient times — a traumatic experience in itself, but one which left Western European languages with written versions, using letters created by the Romans. Eastern European languages developed written versions centuries later.

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Thomas Sowell (photo)