Direct Action. What'd you think?

[jet_silver]

[F]irst world lifestyles are supported by third world poverty...

How does this follow? I see two conditions:

1) One or more first world countries HAS contact with a given third world one;

2) NO first world country has contact with a given third world one.

Condition 1 is easy, look at China. Until about fifteen years ago would you seriously argue they belonged to the first world? Hell, even now the -average- Chinese doesn't have a wristwatch. So we go from next-to-no contact with the first world, to an orgy of trade. Are the Chinese now worse off? Au contraire. Life expectancy up, infant deaths down, industry drawing people from the countryside.

Condition 2 is easy too. Albania. Until King Zog (love that name) fell, Albanians had little food, next to no industry, and their recreation consisted mainly of killing other Albanians. King Zog fell, the walls came down, and life got better until the government was felled by a Ponzi scheme that got out of control.

Third world poverty is created mainly by -governments-. It's true that a first-world government is just as efficient as a third-world one at keeping the population poor, but it's mainly governments that do it. Look at Madagascar. The Malagasy government will -not- lend money to locals because they don't understand business, but they'll lend money to -foreigners- for economic development. Next, look at all the Central African countries whose armies mainly are thieves, and which won't develop even paved -roads-. (The infrastructure in much of Africa was installed by the first world, and when they left the infrastructure was left alone, to decay. See Laura Resnick, "A Blonde in Africa".)

Specific, verifiable counter-examples, Jag?