A nation's political and moral beliefs must be understood bottom up: settings shape circumstances, which inform values, and sculpt behaviors. The disposition, values, and moral expressions of a country flow downstream of the comfort, prosperity, and safety it enjoys. We possess agency shaping our environments, but lack it regarding what we can sustainably do while inhabiting them. The same man will espouse dramatically different principles and priorities if he’s broke in a barrio or wealthy behind a gate; this economic reality scales. Socialism has little use in indigence, just as rugged individualism is slowly forgotten in a country drowning in extravagance. Belt-tightening austerity doesn’t sell to a polity swimming in pleasures. A budget deficit is an academic abstraction for a population where no one is hungry and the proles are all housed with iPhones, Netflix, and two-day Amazon delivery. Collectively, they’ll only care once they’re made to care, and that day will come when luxuries and safeties that were taken for granted, cease to be. People disregard order when surrounded by excess; they care about order when the excess starts to fade. The moral foundations that lift a country out of poverty are not equally potent in wealth. Wartime virtues lack the same utility when the homeland is secure. The weather determines if you can wear shorts; the economic climate determines how liberal you get to be. A society is a collective organism composed of two macro-level moral lineages: amass‑and‑order versus distribute‑and‑care. Contrasting conservative and liberal moral frameworks are evolved characteristics in service of human coordination. Societies have gestated two mutualistic components with competing, complementary, moral imperatives. Their benefits are not absolute nor static, but found in how they help the species exist and coordinate, contingent on our surroundings. A population dominated by one moral polarity is either under duress, or decay. During frontier adversity and developmental phases, advocating equality or redistributive fairness makes as much sense as installing irrigation systems in a waterless desert. The evolutionary worth of conservative morality is found in the existential utility of order, in-group loyalty, and competitive coordination: procure resources, obey commands, secure the perimeter. Masculine because you have to. Thus conservative moral foundations dominate in hardship, as this is when conservative morals have the most utility. In times of war, toil, or strife, you prioritize strength, loyalty, hierarchy, and purity. A nation’s morality masculinizes in these environments, as this is the only viable path to survive and pull yourself out of such situations. Conservative moral foundations pragmatically reign when conditions make its implementation non‑negotiable. Liberal moral foundations flourish when comfort permits the ethic of care; this is when reducing harm and promoting fairness have their say. Feminine because you get to. Proficient masculine roots let feminine flowers bloom. Imagine how gray and prosaic life would be if this weren’t the case. Capital accumulates, the survival imperative relaxes, deprivation declines, the political dynamic organically, incrementally transitions. Political priorities begin to emphasize the circulation of those resources. The preeminent morality drifts from veneration of the strong to protection of the vulnerable; hierarchies are softened, safety nets woven. Difficulty masculinizes, abundance feminizes. Competent, effective masculine morality should yield resources and safety, and this necessarily facilitates the rise of the feminine. It is a poetic sign of accomplishment that you earn the privilege of liberalizing. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Luxury beliefs propagate in a backdrop of luxury conditions. And let’s not deceive ourselves, it’s a blessing to have some luxuries! To avoid this progression towards the feminine is to implicitly be under some form of distress. You can't disentangle only getting the physical luxuries without the intellectual ones; both will be in approximate proportion to each other. An ethic of care takes hold in a state of comfort. Hard times forge hardened minds. There’s no hedonism in poverty, and no discipline in decadence. You cannot escape your environment. Cthulhu doesn’t swim left in any teleological sense, rather he floats leftward as he’s able, taking breaks here and there, atop a lazy river of riches. Wealthy nations drift towards the feminine because they can, poor nations adhere to the masculine because they must. The Domestication Paradox and Feminism Continued in comments