Many countries are poor because economic development is a threat to political control. This seems to be the logic behind North Korea’s recent currency devaluation, which largely destroyed the emerging middle class in the impoverished country. It seems that the government feared the emergence of an economically-independent class of people, so it simply destroyed their wealth. This is not an isolated occurrence. Zimbabwe’s economic nightmare stems from Robert Mugabe’s fanatical devotion to clinging to political power, for example. Lack of political rights facilitates these types of wealth-destroying activities. The main point is that poverty in countries like North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe is a deliberate policy.

Even in countries with more benign governments, such as Nigeria, poverty is the result of elite corruption. The economic development first crowd often treats poverty as an accident. All to often, it’s politically engineered.