I'm such a happy in-di-vid-ual

When 'you feel so young', you might also feel democratic, if Berkeley economists Gorodnichenko and Roland are right;

• Individualistic culture tends to create a demand for democracy, as individual freedom is fundamental for self-achievement. Equality before the law and limited government provided under democracy help protect individual freedom.
• Collectivist culture instead focuses more on the necessity of a benevolent ruler to create stability between different clans and groups. The emphasis is more on hierarchy and order, and freedom can be seen as endangering stability.

Speaking of which, the comrades could learn something from these two, about the likelihood of bloody conflict (and its absence). And about the climate that best fosters prosperity;

...we documented that countries with a more individualist culture have more innovation and higher long-term growth, controlling for the usual variables used in the growth literature, such as institutions and education. Our research thus shows that individualistic cultures may affect both income per capita and democracy.

Acemoglu et al., take note, because when you say;

Our results show a robust and sizable effect of democracy on economic growth. Our central estimates suggest that a country that switches from nondemocracy to democracy achieves about 20% higher GDP per capita in the long run (over roughly the next 30 years). These are large but not implausible effects, and suggest that the global rise in democracy over the past 50 years (of over 30 percentage points) has yielded roughly 6% higher world GDP.

You're also saying that individualism goeth before the fall of autocracy and poverty.