Exploring the Rice Theory of Culture, Labor Intensity, and Cultural Divergence

In the West economic development spawned individualism and the spirit of ‘68. Modernisation theorists predicted that growth would deliver liberalism worldwide. Inglehart and Welzel argued that post-industrial societies would champion self-expression. But in fact, this has not transpired. Many prosperous places - like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and South Korea - remain quite conservative. India’s economic growth has not delivered secularism, but Hindu nationalism. Why explains this global cultural divergence?