It's not hard to find people whose ancestors 150 years ago were poor, uneducated, lacking skills and access to social networks... I think you're just describing an average peasant. And yet, there are different outcomes.
Ongoing segregation and discrimination against blacks in America since slavery doesn't seem to be making it into your math here. Why? It's significant and should be considered.
And it's not hard to imagine how "peasants" might do well when compared to former slaves...(1) being poor and being a slave are very different (2) It's much tougher to segregate and discriminate when everybody looks basically the same. It's easy when their skin color is different.
As I mentioned in my post upthread, I agree it's a factor. I just don't think it's the sole factor or even the most important factor.
Do tell: What is the most important factor? Why?
I don't see any ongoing segregation (though, interestingly enough, some Black movements nowadays are trying to revive it, in some places even successfully).
I've mentioned Jews upthread -- they were very consistently discriminated against until after the WW2. Did they have similar outcomes?
On the other hand you have SubSaharan Africa which is doing pretty badly by pretty much any criterion. That includes countries which were colonies only for a very very short period (such as Ethiopia, which is also mostly Christian and the former Emperor of which traced a...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "