After World War II, mainstream economists offered a number of theories about what it would take to lift the underdeveloped world out of poverty. As an article in the Cato Journal showed, all these theories turned out to be wrong.

Inequality among nations was greatly reduced over the last three decades as one billion people were lifted out of extreme poverty. That occurred because of greater respect for private property, opening up markets and participation in international trade.

See Jane Shaw’s summary.

Implications for the debate topic: International inequality has been greatly reduced – not because of redistribution from rich countries to poor (in fact foreign aid may have made the receiving countries worse off), but because poor countries became part of the international capitalist system.