As you seem to suggest in your last para, Law is useful, but also insufficient. It is often too rigid and cold. It is easily subverted, selectively applied or conveniently re-interpreted by whoever has more power. Two cultures can have the same constitution yet produce greatly divergent results. You can see this in the failed democracy revolutions of the last 20 years. You can see this in comparing the state of American democracy today with the state of America democracy in the 60s. Both were tumultuous times, but the culture is far more selfist now than then.
I'm a socialist, but I'd take a socialist culture (defined by people genuinely giving the common good priority) on top of a free-market capitalist economy and political system over a individualist/selfist culture on top of a socialist economy and political system any day. The former will actively work to justly distribute resources and opportunity despite the dark tendencies of capitalism and free markets, while the latter will quickly devolve into a farce of socialism.
Progress is ultimately about the progress of Culture.
"Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity, and principles of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, they can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born, and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment, at each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction."
I'm a socialist, but I'd take a socialist culture (defined by people genuinely giving the common good priority) on top of a free-market capitalist economy and political system over a individualist/selfist culture on top of a socialist economy and political system any day. The former will actively work to justly distribute resources and opportunity despite the dark tendencies of capitalism and free markets, while the latter will quickly devolve into a farce of socialism.
Progress is ultimately about the progress of Culture.
"Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity, and principles of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, they can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born, and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment, at each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction."
~ Cloud Atlas