Despite the attempts to unify Europe into an economic and partial political whole over the past 70 years, the grand experiment is unraveling, and it increasingly looks like the Humpty Dumpty we call Europe cannot be put back together again.

Parts of Europe are enjoying unparalleled freedom and prosperity, but other parts are sinking both economically and politically. What explains the growing divergence?

The different outcomes can be almost fully explained by corruption or the absence thereof, and the degree of economic freedom. Economically free countries tend to have much higher real per capita incomes than those that are not.

The global evidence is overwhelming that the wealth or poverty of any country has little to do with natural resources, but is primarily dependent on sound fiscal and monetary policies, strong institutions, and traditions of individual responsibility.

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, but the socialist government has squandered it all, leaving its people hungry and short of basic necessities. Switzerland has no natural resources to speak of and not even a seaport, but almost all the people in this beautiful land live well.

If the Greeks had to sell some of their islands to the Germans to pay their debts, the safe bet would be that those islands would be far more prosperous under German administration in three decades than others that remained under Greek administration.

Think about the possibility: If badly managed nations had to put up some of their territory as collateral for loans, over time the more prosperous and freer countries would grow, both in physical size and population, and the more corrupt nations would shrink. A world that had more people living under the Swiss governance and economic system would be wealthier, freer and nicer.