A transition curve should have six properties. If all are present, the transition curve is termed beautiful. A beautiful transition curve becomes hump-shaped in first differences. A factor analysis of the main variables shows that they have one and only one joint factor, which is the Grand Transition. It is difficult to study by regression analysis, but it is possible to do so by using univariate kernel techniques using unified data samples ordered by income. This order scrambles other dimensions of the sample. Changes are caused by triggering events. Transition curves are attractors for changes in the explained variables. Four ways to establish the main causal direction are introduced; they include the DP-TSIV-test using the development potential as instruments. The objection that transition curves are statistical artifacts is rejected.

The Fraser F-index of economic freedom measures the freedom to run a private business, measured as an aggregate of many primary indices organized in five groups. It begins in 1970, but it has only a couple of observations from the countries of the Soviet Bloc before 1990, and they are not convincing. The index shows a strong rise from 1975/80 to 2000 and stability since then. The data have a highly significant transition curve. However, it is almost linear over the full range. The main direction of causality is from income to the F-index, but there is some simultaneity. The B- and the F-indices have a correlation of only 0.2, so they do not measure the same. However, the transition curves are very similar.

The two indices used in Chapters 8 and 9 cover many countries but a short period, and the period of Imperialism destroyed most traditional economic systems, so the chapter begins with a brief historical narrative including the two big waves of liberal and Socialist ideologies. An item in the World Values Survey polls the ownership preferences of the respondents. The B-index is a Gini-like aggregation of each poll of this item giving the excess preference in each of 295 polls for capitalism vs Socialism. The pattern of the polls has a significant transition curve, though the fuzziness is larger than for the political system. It appear that the preference for capitalism increases with income, contrary to Marx’s prediction. Causality is mainly from income to the index, but the relation has some simultaneity.