That’s one of the key questions for economists. Comparing nations can give us answers.

In this essay, Tilak Doshi and UNC Professor Peter Coclanis look at one pair: Singapore and the United Kingdom. Over the span of a few decades, Singapore overtook the U.K. in living standards and is now racing further ahead.

They write:

Perhaps the single most important aspect of the Singapore government’s approach to public policy is its core conservatism, or rather classical liberalism, that reflects the insights of Adam Smith. One of the abounding ironies that stand out in this tale of two nations is how Singapore’s social and economic policies reflect Smithian insights into the wealth of nations more so than in the great sage’s own homeland. We submit that the remarkable economic success of the small city-state, with a population of under 6 million, reflects Smith’s aphorism rather well:

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”

So true. That, of course, also explains the success of the United States.

Doshi and Coclanis look at specifics, such as health care, where Britons went all in for government control and now have a miserable system, whereas the Singaporeans stayed with a basically free-market system.

The big lesson here is that when countries embrace “progressive” and collectivist policy notions, they set in motion a train of events that will undermine progress and prosperity, instead giving the people ever more costly and intrusive government.