“Progress,” it has been said, “is born of doubt and inquiry.” If that is the case, then if we want an economy that is both prosperous, but fair, innovative, yet …

Unconscious imitation of belief systems is not a particular trait of Americans. In fact, Joseph Henrich, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard, argues that humans are uniquely talented at mimicking the actions and ideas of others. Our brains naturally compel us to adopt the commonly held ideas of our communities. This impulse means that we unknowingly can develop “norms, institutions, and languages” which “emerge gradually without anyone fully apprehending how or why they work.”