Why Do Some Countries Get Rich While Others Don’t? 

Want to be the first to see new videos dropping every Wednesday? Sign up for our newsletter: www.kiteandkeymedia.com/subscribe. 📩⚡

Papua New Guinea was an Australian-administered territory for most of the 20th century, and presumably operated under the same legal and economic protocols - in other words, the same degree of freedom - as Australia. So what is the real reason for the vast disparity in prosperity? Virtually all of PNG’s wealth, such as it is, comes from the extraction and export of minerals and oil. If you are not a laborer in an extractive industry, what else can you do? According to this video, all you have to do is “get more freedom” and all sorts of lucrative commercial enterprises will magically appear! But it doesn’t work that way. PNG could conceivably start on the road to a more diverse economy by building some low-tech manufacturing businesses, but in the “Global free-trade paradise” that is a practical impossibility - as they could never compete with the cheap goods produced by factories in places like China. “Freedom” may be loosely correlated to prosperity in developed countries, but “free trade” keeps third-world countries from taking even the first baby steps to genuine economic development.

I love Singapore and I’ve visited there, but I wouldn’t exactly call them free. Singaporeans live under what many describe as a prosperous authoritarian state, especially during their economic development, they limited political and economic rights. Taiwan and South Korea are other great examples, during their economic development in the Cold War, they lived under brutal regimes they viewed it as a trade off for prosperity.

I imagine this is done by using the per capita income of free vs unfree countries. The big counter example is how China became overwhelmingly powerful in industry by leveraging its low income workers. They’ve also artificially kept themselves as a “low income country” so they have better loan status to the world trade organization. Much of the world assumed that with more wealth China would become more free but that has not occurred. More wealth does not equal more freedom even if more freedom might equal more wealth

Sound | Artlist: "Land" ANBR, "Human" Rex Banner, "High Dosage" Captain Qubz, "Hoshifuru Yoruni" ra'z // Premium Beat: "Great Discovery" Oakvale Of Albion // Artlist SFX Library // Splice SFX Library Footage | Atlantic Council Website // Fraser Institute // The Economist // Jordan Times // Hanna-Barbera: Smurfs (1981) // Library of Congress: Carol M. Highsmith, Keppler & Schwarzmann, Frank A. Nankivell, Ehrhart, C.J. Taylor // U.S. Treasury // Getty: Roc Canals, Sean Gladwell, Michael Lee, Chris Beavon, Tzido, Aris Messinis / Staff, Vince Caligiuri / Stringer, CLIPPN The Professional Clip Network, Lu ShaoJi, AerialPerspective Works, OceanFishing, AFPTV, WGBH Stock Sales, Lighthouse Films, Hispanolistic, Gorodenkoff, MTStock Studio, Armand Burger, UnicusX, Andresr, API / Contributor, MartinHarvey, BlackLight Films - Louie Schwartzberg, Lantern Vision, Topical Press Agency / Stringer, Mongkol Chuewong, Bluejayphoto, HUM Images / Contributor, Heritage Images / Contributor, Walter Bibikow, Fairfax Media Archives / Contributor, Marka / Contributor, We Are, Sean De Burca, Nicescene, CTRPhotos, Pamspix, Xavierarnau, Holger Leue, Juan Alberto Casado, James O'Neil, Aomam, Bettmann / Contributor, Eduardorestrepo, Imazins, Malerapaso, Stock KM, Anatoly Kireev, Ianmcdonnell, Thomas Barwick, Ariel Skelley, Yellow Dog Productions Inc., Ferrantraite, Recep-bg, Flame Media // Adobe Stock: Hit1912, Torsten Pursche, Kvitkanastroyu, Tanarch, Moderngolf1984, Kalyakan, Edson Souza, Евгений Вдовин, Mehaniq41, Paylessimages // Storyblocks: SpaceStockFootage, Nitrozme, Faisalj75, Dabarticgi, Monkeybusiness, Artiemedvedev, CactusVP, Pressmaster Production Studio, Stockbusters, Borovikk, Pohodzhayproduction, HDVMaster, Mediawhalestock, RomaS, Alex@asiaimagesgroup.com // Unsplash: Joseph Gonzalez, Xin, Nataša M, Aziz Acharki, Larry Ferreira, Clay Banks // Pexels: Brooke Laven, Kostiantyn Stupak, Karolina Grabowska, August de Richelieu, James Cheney, PhotoMIX Company // Pixabay: Ewar // Vecteezy: Timplaru Emil // Alchemist-hp // Henna // CITED SOURCES AND NEWS OUTLETS ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH AND HAVE NOT ENDORSED OR SPONSORED ANY PORTION OF THIS PRODUCTION.

May I add that the free press makes it difficult for governments and businesses to be corrupt and that corruption is the real root cause of poverty? So: freedom => free press => less corruption => much more prosperity. You can take the list of Transparency International and you'll see my point.

I recently watched the Milton Friedman PBS series ("Free to Choose") and lamented that it didn't save the world, but should have.

Singapore free?

But let’s be sure to vote for more democrats/ marxists…. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” 😂

What makes a country rich? Capitalism, what makes a coutry poor? Socialism, it's that simple.

There are no free countries, they are either English, Asian or German controlled. The United Nations makes it look like there is more going on, but all the laws governing those so called free nations are either owned by or highly influenced by English law. China and Germany are the only rivals, and both China and Germany are dictatorships of which whose laws would align more along the lines with other dictatorships such as North Korea, etc.

Funny how the REALLY prosperous countries have had a history of Imperialism, OF COURSE you're going to have more when you "hoarded" wealth FOR CENTURIES from other countries you exploited and whose population you enslaved; here's a new map for you: SHOW who has the most guns and technology...The Venezuela case is due to the economic sanctions that the Yankee Empire has imposed on this country...Many countries have wanted to be free BUT "The West" has imposed dictatorships or puppet states for the sake of Western interests SO the poverty-around-the-world-dilemma is much, much complicated than this simplistic video...

Maybe some races are smarter than others?