People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It’s a silly question. Poverty is the default human condition. It is the factory preset of this mortal coil. As individuals and as a species, we are born naked and penniless, bereft of skills or possessions. Likewise, in his civilizational infancy man was poor, in every sense. He lived in ignorance, filth, hunger, and pain, and he died very young, either by violence or disease.
The interesting question isn’t “Why is there poverty?” It’s “Why is there wealth?” Or: “Why is there prosperity here but not there?”
At the end of the day, the first answer is capitalism, rightly understood. That is to say: free markets, private property, the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the conviction that the fruits of your labors are your own.
via The Spoiled Children of Capitalism by Jonah Goldberg on National Review Online.
A bit unrelated, but you might check out the PBS doc based on Germs, Guns, and Steel. It’s overly-repetitive (supposedly the book is much meatier), but it gives a compelling (partial) explanation of historical world inequality (before economics played such a large part). It’s easier to build intellectual and monetary wealth up over generations when you don’t have to spend most of your time securing food and fighting Malaria and Europeans with guns. The Amazon comments may give a decent overview.
I read “Guns Germs and Steel” years ago — it’s good stuff. I find it now to be a little too much “ex-post” storytelling. My suggestion is to follow up with “The Mystery of Capital” by Hernando de Soto:
http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-Triumphs-Everywhere/dp/0465016154/