historically speaking, social, religious, legal frameworks that evolved in northern climes over a few thousand years may play important roles in economic success.

Those frameworks have evolved elsewhere in the world independently as well in a similar fashion. What you’re looking at is a specific time in history where due to a variety of reasons, some places are doing well relative to others. If you look at history across 2000 years, you’ll find that different parts of the world were doing better at different times.