The reasons why nations excel or fail is of course open to question, as is the basic utility of creeds such as Capitalism, Socialism, Communism or Fascism.   It is always worthwhile to ponder what works and why, and this article makes some thought provoking arguments.

Whether you believe in the point of this article or not, it is certainly worth the read.

From the article:

"Then, as the Modern Era devolved into the Postmodern, one after another, the Old Ways came back, and the rate of progress slowed.  The traditions we were told were the obstacles standing in the path of progress, the faith of our fathers, was nothing other than the engine of progress.  As the coachman shot the horses to prevent them form blocking the career of the coach, and then wondered why the coach ground slowly to a halt.

Have you ever wondered where your flying car is, now that you live in the age of the Jetson's, dear reader?  Answer: you sold it for a mess of pottage.  When civilization abandoned institutional Christianity for liberalism, then abandoned Christian notions of decency and individualism for socialism, and then abandoned Christian notions of the objectivity of truth, beauty and virtue for the roaring abyss of nihilism, civilization lost the engine and motive of it's progress.

When you stopped calling yourself sons of God and started calling yourself naked apes, you stopped climbing Jacob's Ladder toward the angels, and slumped instead toward the jungle where nature red in tooth and claw holds reign."

Well did it?  I'm convinced that the basis of everything is the moral health of the people, but I'm not convinced that the lack of the proverbial flying car is connected so closely to the change, if you will, in the modern morals of the West.  They are changing quickly, that is true, and although those changes will make the world a much different place soon, I guess we will need to wait to see how much progress is affected.