Throughout history great thinkers have pointed out that the main wealth of nations lies in its people. In our country from Bolivar to Arturo Uslar Pietri, many illustrious Venezuelans have warned that the road to development and progress of the nation is determined primarily by the level of education of its citizens. However, it is worth asking: Is this just a thought really idealistic or empirical, verifiable evidence exists that this is the development base?. And from there, how is this relationship?.
To carry this claim to the realm of measurable (and thus of the verifiable or falsifiable), it is necessary to define parameters that can be measured (observed) and that they reflect attributes that wish to measure, in this case the development of population and wealth of a country.
The United Nations Programme for Development (UNDP ) in an attempt to explore the relationship between the progress of peoples and other social indicators, defined the Human Development Index (HDI ) based on three factors : Life expectancy at birth, educational level (taking into account the level of illiteracy and eduacion enrollment in primary, secondary and university) and average income, where each index is standardized and can take values \u200b\u200bbetween 0 (minimum) and 1 (maximum) and the HDI value is simply calculated as the average value of three (
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Figure 1 (click to enlarge), taken from the book the Wealth of Nations, Dr. Klaus Jaffe shows the Human Development Index (or HDI, an acronym in English) versus Gross Domestic Product nations ( GDP in U.S. $, 1998). Each circle represents values \u200b\u200bfor a country such as details of the program for the United Nations of Development 2003 (UNDP). Blue Diamond, added to this post represents the most recent values \u200b\u200bavailable (2007) for our country. 
This graph shows that there is a strong correlation between HDI and GDP . In the case of Venezuela, it seems to be under the relationship, having a per capita GDP greater than that accruing to their role in human development, which could speculate is the result of oil revenues, that rather than being a product of our scientific and technical development is the result of a geological feature.
also the number of years of schooling of the population is also related to the wealth of the nation . In Figure 2, shows the number of years formal versus the GDP equation, where I could see that Venezuela is slightly offset from the relationship, suggesting again that our country has a wealth greater than that accruing due to the average number of years of schooling of its citizens.
But as Dr. Jaffe said, not all education involves development and prosperity. Figure 3 shows the relationship between educational excellence and GDP for several countries in Latin America. There he notes that for most Latin American countries an increase in the quality of their equation is related to the economic development of the same in direct proportion, however it can also be seen that in the case of Cuba, this country is far from that relationship having little economic development in spite of their educational development. 
This could be interpreted as not only necessary to achieve high levels of educational excellence, but also that this is based on education that promotes critical thinking and free thought away from the dogmas, politicization and indoctrination.
addition, increasingly researchers often social and economic, found evidence showing the importance of the values \u200b\u200bit promotes and economic welfare. In a recently published book entitled " Making poor nations rich: entrepreneurship and economic development process, several researchers explored the intimate link between aspects of culture, the importance given to liberty and private property , and the level reached in its material. Everything seems to indicate that the level of quality of life for a better country as long as you promote productive activities (such as innovation and creation, which requires individual freedom and research) rather than encourage unproductive activities (bureaucracy and rent-seeking, they need greater control of the state), regardless of natural resources held by each country.
And if the source of innovation is research, then the level of scientific development should be correlated with the wealth of nations. Figure 4 shows the number of scientific papers in international journals (according to SCI ) versus GDP per capita, and also may notice that this time there is a direct relationship between both variables.
While it is necessary to clarify that correlation does not imply causation, ie a statistical relationship between variables does not imply that one is following the other, the least in this case we dare to say that the correlation between intellectual development of citizens of a nation and the richness of it, is not a coincidence, but a causal link. To the extent that people can prepare better, they may further develop their potential and improve their quality of life. That is why in our country the true revolution that must happen is that of thought and intelligence, encouraged by an improvement in the quality education focused on the rationality and freedom. Only then will we take the greatest wealth of a nation: its people. Edison Durán
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