How is that working out for them? I am by no means an anti-intellectual and I do value knowledge for it's own sake. But Europeans in particular seem to be unable to translate their mathematics educations into any sort of practical economic growth.

I think the people in Europe tend to be happy with a chosen system with a more balanced and more steady life outside of work at the cost of less billionaires and GDP growth. And they invent plenty of things, they just, like Salk, don’t seek as obsessively to extract maximum profit from it all.

"What worth is education if the workers it produces are not making the rich richer."

Education is about cultivating true richness of culture and mind. The economy is in service of a higher purpose - of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not the other way around.

Poland is growing a lot. The Soviet block countries were big on math.