Here’s a fundamental rule of political economy: Wealth buys safety, not merely comfort and convenience. This is a true, empirical, universal, testable, statistical generalization, a helpful one when formulating public policy. While we can find exceptions -- rich folks do climb Everest and fly their own planes -- such exceptions probe the rule. Generally, the richer-is-safer rule holds true.

Wealth fosters resiliency and safety. A 6.8 magnitude earthquake kills thousands in a Third World country, while far fewer here. It takes real resources to buy the rebar, engineering, and honest inspections required for safe buildings and bridges. The same logic holds for the recycled school buses Ramona and I recently observed in Guatemala.

I travel to meet with classical liberal friends or to advance our shared ideals. My earlier life as an anthropologist enriches this activity. I focused not on stones and bones but rather on economic and political institutions. How do folks coordinate and cooperate for mutual advantage? What institutions foster progress? How does culture affect behavior?

I’m alert to these questions when traveling. And that’s why I am intrigued with the migration of old school buses. The “chicken buses” of Guatemala captivated my interest.

In America a school bus is usually retired after a specified number of years, miles, or an inspection failure. It is likely to migrate to and die while providing transportation in a developing nation. We recently saw hundreds of these buses in Guatemala. Some, brightly painted and highly decorated, are called “chicken buses.”

This description is from an American tourist: “You hand the [driver about seven cents], along with your pack, or your bundle of wool, or your trussed goat, … or your washing machine, and he climbs to the roof, manhandles it up there. After you’re sure he’s secured it for the ride, you and your chickens climb inside….”

Guatemala has buses as comfortable and safe as the best of ours. The Mercedes bus we rode to Antigua was nearly new and far more comfortable than coach class air. En route we passed many old buses, crowded, dirty, and fully loaded. A few were broken down roadside, one had lost its driveshaft, none were as safe as ours. What lessons roll here?

I’m sure of three things: 1, natives on the school buses are poor; 2, they too would prefer luxury; and 3, these sorry buses beat their next best alternative. These buses generate value by moving people and their stuff to preferred locations. Couldn’t the Guatemalan legislature pass laws mandating new buses and outlawing chicken buses? Yes, but only once. Then they’d be voted out, for the retired buses reveal preferences of poor voters who can afford nothing better.

The chicken bus fares are dirt cheap, a small fraction of that of our Mercedes. The next bus up the transportation scale doesn’t carry animals. It is a quarter the fare of a top-line bus. There is a gradient of price, comfort, and safety and you surely know which way it runs.

Honest and well-informed people concerned with improving the lot of folks in developing countries celebrate the market process while alert to such market failures as pollution. The market recycles buses and gives the poor, both rural and urban, transportation options.

If a country maintains a few institutions -- secure property rights, the rule of law, and markets -- it will generate wealth. Only then can it progress to comfort and safety.

Enthusiasm for regulation and governmental control of the economy, however well intended, derails this wealth-creating process. Regulations raise the cost of providing services. Improved buses imply higher bus fares. This would prevent many from carrying their products to and purchases from market on motorized transport. A return to walking and donkeys implies foregone opportunities to improve well-being. Regulations hinder the economic progress that naturally moves the poor onto safer buses.

Those of us in wealthy countries are seldom aware of the tradeoffs the truly poor face on a daily basis. Most Americans see only relative, not absolute poverty. We take safety and comfort as given. Travel to a developing country reminds me they are not. I’m especially grateful this Thanksgiving weekend.