Without a social system that encourages fairness and allows social mobility, all the karma or religion in the world won't make the society a better place. India, the birthplace of so many religions, is still today a very wretched society. Thailand has always been a land of extremes, well-known for its Buddhism, its own Buddhist flavour of shamanism, human trafficking and sex trade.
If the society was fairer to the disadvantaged and poor, it would have far less need to be religious in order to provide some sort of hope and reason in a society that appears both unjust and hypocritically pious at the same time.