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Comment by tuatoru | Hacker News Reader

As well as the formal, visible institutions like constitutions or legal frameworks there are a lot of invisible ones like cultural norms.

In a lot of countries the most powerful institution is "family first" (sometimes extending that to ethnic or religious in-group second).

The (currently) successful countries got that way with a different norm, "same rules for everyone".

I'm viewing the emphasis on family first in recent Disney/Pixar movies with increasing concern. Sure it sells better in China, but at what long-term cost?

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>In a lot of countries the most powerful institution is "family first" (sometimes extending that to ethnic or religious in-group second).

>The (currently) successful countries got that way with a different norm, "same rules for everyone".

Which successful countries are these? As far as I can tell, the richer, more resourceful, established tribes don't follow the same rules as everyone. They might not be as blatantly corrupt as others, or the corruption may be more higher level with more plausible deniability, but "family first" is human nature.

You have any concrete examples of both type of countries?

"Same rules for everyone" countries: the archetype would be England after the civil war, where it became established that it didnt' matter if you were related to the King (or were the King), the law applied to you also.

(Of course there are varying values of "everyone." Most countries pretty much excluded half of the adult population until recently.)

For "family first" countries: this is the default mode for humans, so pretty much every country at one point or another. Nigeria and India would be two ountries where it's important to be related to the right people. India's caste system further reduces opportunities for many, perhaps most, people. For more extreme examples: Yemen, Afghanistan.

“Same rules for everyone” resonates very strongly here in New Zealand. There is a book-length study [1] on our national obsession with ‘fairness’ (contrasted with the USA and ‘freedom’).

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12112539-fairness-and-fr...

There's the other extreme - state above all.

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