There is one chief difference between superior and inferior peoples. von Mises explained this 60+ years ago:
"If the Asiatics and Africans really enter into the orbit of Western civili-
zation, they will have to adopt the market economy without reservations.
Then their masses will rise above their present proletarian wretchedness and
practice birth control as it is practiced in every capitalistic country. No
excessive growth of population will longer hinder the improvement in the
standards of living. But if the oriental peoples in the future confine them-
selves to mechanical reception of the tangible achievements of the West
without embracing its basic philosophy and social ideologies, they will
forever remain in their present state of inferiority and destitution. Their
populations may increase considerably, but they will not raise themselves
above distress. These miserable masses of paupers will certainly not be a
serious menace to the independence of the Western nations. As long as there
is a need for weapons, the entrepreneurs of the market society will never
stop producing more efficient weapons and thus securing to their country-
men a superiority of equipment over the merely imitative noncapitalistic
Orientals. The military events of both World Wars have proved anew that
the capitalistic countries are paramount also in armaments production. No
foreign aggressor can destroy capitalist civilization if it does not destroy
itself. Where capitalistic entrepreneurship is allowed to function freely, the
fighting forces will always be so well equipped that the biggest armies of
the backward peoples will be no match for them. There has even been great
exaggeration of the danger of making the formulas for manufacturing “secret”
weapons universally known. If war comes again, the searching
mind of the capitalistic world will always have a head start on the peoples
who merely copy and imitate clumsily.
The peoples who have developed the system of the market economy and
cling to it are in every respect superior to all other peoples. The fact that they
are eager to preserve peace is not a mark of their weakness and inability to
wage war. They love peace because they know that armed conflicts are
pernicious and disintegrate the social division of labor. But if war becomes
unavoidable, they show their superior efficiency in military affairs too. They
repel the barbarian aggressors whatever their numbers may be."







