Prosperity and Safety

Here's a letter that I sent to the Washington Post:

You report that experts give much of the credit for the relatively low death toll of Chile's recent earthquake to "the nation's enactment and enforcement of stringent building codes" – codes that were largely absent in Haiti ("Chile reels in aftermath of quake, emergency workers provide aid," March 1).

With a market-oriented economy, per-capita income in Chile is more than ten times higher than is per-capita income in Haiti.  One result is...