It's no coincidence that the northern West European countries are rich (as in materialistic wealth), and the Southern ones are poor.
When it's cold, it just makes a lot more sense to work because otherwise you freeze your ass off.
With time, your culture is influenced by the heat. Argentina was settled by Spanish and Italian people, thus this country is influenced by their culture (South Europeans). As opposed to for example Australia that was settled by English (North Europeans). In other words, they brought their European culture with them.
Does that explain it for you?
I am not saying that you can't build an empire in heat. I am talking about efficiency in society. And I don't think that you can blame culture for what is wrong in Latin-America, I'd say that that has more to do with imperialism.
jp said:
Geography certainly plays an important big role. Not so sure about "heat".