(Foundation for Economic Education) In the South Caucasus, people don't wait for permission to solve problems. They build what they need with what they have, rarely expecting help from above.

In Georgia and Armenia, where trust in centralized institutions remains low, and bureaucracy is often a barrier rather than a source of support, people have developed something the West is quietly losing: a cultural instinct for self-reliance.

This instinct isn't merely an ideal. It's how you survive when the electricity cuts off, the health system is underfunded, or the local mayor is more interested in photo-ops than potholes. And in an era where the West is drowning in regulation, dependency, and top-down planning, there's a quiet lesson to learn from this chaotic but functional region: you don't need a perfect state to thrive. You need community, creativity, and the freedom to act. Take the US education system, for instance: bloated with bureaucracy and standardized testing, it often leaves teachers and students disempowered. Yet grassroots learning programs, homeschooling networks, and community-funded initiatives are filling the gap where the system fails. It's not perfection, but it's people making it work.

Resilience Over Reliance

Walk through a Georgian village, and you'll see what happens when people are left to their own devices. Neighbors help each other harvest grapes for homemade wine (still sold informally across the country). Elderly women sell fresh herbs and churchkhela (a traditional candy) on sidewalks, free from the burdens of permit requirements and corporate oversight. Families run informal guesthouses in the mountains, marketing them through WhatsApp groups and word of mouth.

These aren't just charming cultural quirks. They're acts of economic resilience in the face of weak formal systems. In places like Tusheti or Samtskhe-Javakheti, basic infrastructure remains unreliable. So, people build their own roads, pool money for communal repairs, and even organize snow-clearing efforts when the state forgets about them.

In Armenia, following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the state was largely unprepared to provide shelter and support for thousands of displaced people. Amid a sluggish state response, civil society organizations, church networks, and even Telegram channels stepped in to organize food, housing, and trauma support. Volunteers mapped available apartments, delivered supplies, and coordinated transportation. There was no centralized strategy—just decentralized action. And it worked.