Generalized Ideas In North And South Korea

There are generalized ideas about why a nation succeeds or fails but they are just that, generalized ideas. The intelligence of a nation has nothing to do with its GDP, and its success is not determined by its culture or geography. Explaining away the differences in two nations, like North and South Korea, that are side-by-side and were once a single nation by geography and culture simply does not work. What does explain the differences in nations, however, is the political and economic structure of their institutions; weather they are structured in a way to advance and spread wealth or funnel wealth down to a select few elites.
There are two broad and opposing ways to shape a nation; extractive political and economic institutions are a way