Mexico for example had a revolution which gave the land to the people and is a country that, over a century later, is still struggling with corruption, ignorance, superstition, etc.
I've been living in Mexico for 12 years and IMO it all comes down to poor education like the grandparent comment by belval suggested.
As an example, take the current Mexican government who was largely put in power by the lower classes. Instead of investing into education and social programs, is putting all its eggs into the oil basket.
Edit:
BTW I'm not arguing that more expenditure in education results in better education.
For the Mexican case specifically, the revolution did not replace the landowning political elite, but installed a different subset of them. A succession of presidents from the landowning class slow-walked land reform (we're talking single-digit percentages of land redistributed per decade), mostly motivated by the fear of Zapatista rebels rather than commitment to equality.
Cárdenas was probably the first seriously pro-reform president (mid- and late-30s), but the old landowners remained wealthy and preserved a good chunk of their holdings. (For political reasons, he focused on foreign landholders.) This meant that the next landowner-friendly president a few years later created a land-leasing system that de facto returned control of large collective farms to the landowning class.
See also how the (non-revolutionary) emancipation of serfs in the Russian Empire didn't change much, since serfs had to take out loans to compensate their former masters. Social hierarchies and power balances remained, despite a change in form.
The historical pattern is that advocates for the rich will try to undermine assessments to fall more heavily on buildings in poor neighborhoods and replace property tax revenues with sales tax, and that advocates for the poor will try to reform assessments to fall more heavily on land in rich neighborhoods and decrease sales tax.
'Land reform' in the sense of trying to equally divide low value rural land by area without appointing assessors to appraise taxable value of urban property is viewed as a bizarre and impractical European idea.
BTW there are still plenty of ejidos all over Mexico which are not owned by the political elite.
If you're interested in a really deep dive into related Eastern European examples (not Russian) of the limits and successes of land reform, I'd suggest this textbook: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=372
And yup! The reversion of Cárdenas's reforms was not complete; reformers in positions of power do make some difference, even if it's less than you'd guess based on short-term results. Though note that many ejidos owned by the intended local peasant's collectives are de facto controlled by a large landowner or business. (The political elite of the early-/mid-20th century was a subset of the landowning elite, not its entirety.)
Ultimately, Mexico has suffered significantly from the government granting monopoly rights to particular businesses (friends of the government) and by not respecting property rights. Both of these trends have spanned governments and go all the way back to the Spanish colonialists.
There is little incentive in Mexico to innovate and invest, because if you are too successful, you will likely run afoul of some wealthy friend of a politician who will use his power to ruin you. From the point of view of the political elite, this makes sense, because they are all rich and in charge. But this behavior impoverishes society on average.
Concrete examples in the book include the banking industry, which was effectively monopolized by 2 banks with government support in the 19th century. Contrasted with hundreds of banks with fierce competition in the US in the same time period. This resulted in high interest rates in Mexico (and thus little incentive to invest) and low interest rates in the US (which was rapidly industrializing).
A more modern example is comparing Bill Gates vs. Carlos Slim, who were vying for the title of the world's richest person when the book was written. Bill Gates made his fortune by founding an incredibly successful company. When it was engaging in monopolistic behavior, it was successfully prosecuted by the government. Contrast this with Carlos Slim who made his fortune largely by being granted favorable monopolistic deals by the Mexican government.
Ref. the movie Viva Zapata! Which has Marlon Brando playing a Mexican revolutionary hero facing this kind of disillusioning outcome over & over. (Mostly bringing this up because I went to the trouble to watch it recently and needed a conversation to work it into)
https://www.bau.edu.jo/UserPortal/UserProfile/PostsAttach/33...
For example, the U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment freed the slaves, but included an exception on forced labor for those convicted of a crime. Surprise surprise, former Confederate states make up crimes (like loitering) that are only enforced on Black people, and the cheap, no-choice labor force is back at work, even if under a structure that only barely resembles prewar chattel slavery.
Yes, because the fundamental problem is changing the culture, not the "shape".
In Mexico (the example I know first hand) corruption is definitely a cultural problem. It happens at all levels because it is culturally acceptable to bend/ignore the rules for personal gain.
There's even a saying in Mexico which is "el que no transa no avanza". It translates to something like "the one who doesn't cheat, doesn't move forward in life".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Squad:_The_Enemy_Withi...
Drugs across the american border is very lucrative giving power and money to alot of bad people in Mexico. Watch Narcos Mexico to get a wiff of the proximity to the US creating cartels.
