Politically Incorrect Commentary on the Economic Fate of Nations Postrel's article in the NY Times on the question of whether income inequality is actually rising is well worth a look. The upshot is that the failure to account for population size when assessing the rise of "global inequality" leads to the erroneous conclusion that the rich are getting richer at the poor's expense. The analysis cited in the article reveals this depressing "rise in inequality" to be largely a statistical artifact caused by the inclusion of 35 African countries with dismal economic indicators. To quote the article:

Counting by countries misses the biggest economic advance in history, completely distorting the record of the globalization period. Over the last three decades, and especially since the 1980's, the world's two largest countries, China and India, have raced ahead economically. So have other Asian countries with relatively large populations. The result is that 2.5 billion people have seen their standards of living rise toward those of the billion people in the already developed countries — decreasing global poverty and increasing global equality. From the point of view of individuals, economic liberalization has been a huge success. "You have to look at people," says Professor Sala-i-Martin. "Because if you look at countries, we do have lots and lots of little countries that are doing very poorly, namely Africa — 35 African countries." But all Africa has only about half as many people as China. ... In 1970, global income distribution peaked [i.e., the mode was $1000] at about $1,000 in today's dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal's. "That's what I call a new world middle class," says Professor Sala-i-Martin. It is mostly made up of the top 40 percent of Chinese and Indians, and the effect of their economic rise is big. What about the argument that income gaps are widening within these rapidly advancing countries? With a few exceptions, it is true, but still misleading. The rich did get richer faster than the poor did. But for the most part the poor did not get poorer. They got richer, too. In exchange for significantly rising living standards, a little more internal inequality is not such a bad thing.

This fact - the rise of a global middle class - is utterly damning for the anti-globalization crowd. But there is an important exception to the trend in Africa:

There is, however, one large country where the poor really are getting poorer while the rich grow richer: Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. Nigeria's economy has actually shrunk over the last three decades, and the absolute poverty rate — the percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day in 1985 dollars — skyrocketed to 46 percent in 1998 from 9 percent in 1970. While most Nigerians were falling further into destitution, the political and economic elite grew richer. The problem is not too much liberalization but too little, a politicized economy with widespread corruption. "The rich guys are doing well, therefore reforms will not come," says a pessimistic Professor Sala-i-Martin. He has begun studying Nigeria, trying to come up with ways around the political problem. That country is typical of Africa, which is growing ever poorer. Fully 95 percent of the world's "one-dollar poor" live in Africa, and in many countries they make up the vast majority of the population. That poverty, not the rising wealth of Asian countries, is the global economy's real problem. "The welfare implications of finding how to turn around the growth performance of Africa are so staggering," he writes, "that this has probably become the most important question in economics."

This is the sort of thing you just shake your head at...the truth of the matter is universally acknowledged, but rarely stated. Very well - let me state the bald truth: I doubt that any intervention short of genetic engineering will allow the modernization of Africa . Here's La Griffe Du Lion with more details on why.