Sofía Beatriz Cerrato Fajardo

Friday, May 28th, 2021

Mrs. Oliva

Anthropology

Essay: Why are some countries so rich and others so poor?

11th Grade National

Why are some countries so rich and others so poor?

Why are some countries so rich and others so poor? That is a question history can help us
answer. Many economists believe that people are rational and will grasp opportunities for
gains from innovation, allocating efficiencies, and contractual adjustments. In order to
produce continuous growth, there must be a factor or a combination of factors that can be
collected indefinitely without diminishing returns. We often make an assumption that
overpopulation, low ratio of land and other natural resources to population increases poverty
in poor countries. Essentially, the economic concepts and models of these factors contradict
the results happening in the world.The answer to the differences in rich and poor countries is
the quality of the countries institutions and economic policies. Low income countries tend to
struggle and fail to grow more rapidly than high-income countries: but a subset of the lower
income countries show a fast pace in economic growth. If poor countries can create fine
economic policies and institutions, they will be able to raise their per capita incomes by
investment in technology and other elements in developing the economic growth. There are
still big bills that are left on the sidewalks to pick up.

One of the biggest issues going around the world is poverty. In 2019 the World Bank did
some research and they discovered that 9.2% of the world’s population lives in poverty.
These people are living on $1.20 or even less per day. Living in poverty means a life of
struggle and deprivation.We have two different parts of poverty, first we have relative
poverty, which is a state of living where people can afford necessities but are unable to meet
their society’s average standard of living. They are unable to participate in society in a
meaningful way. Contrary to relative poverty, we have absolute poverty as well, which is the
lack of basic needs that typically are food, water, household, and access to health care. This is
because the level of economic growth differs from country to country. The greater the amount
of growth the less room there is for poverty. This is the simple reason why some countries are
richer than others. Poverty lines are not the same in all countries. In higher-income countries,
the cost of living is higher and so the poverty line is higher, too. For this reason it partly
answers the question of why some countries are richer than others. It is widely thought that
the productive capacity of an economy will increase each year largely due to improvements
in education and technology. This will obviously differ from country to country.

The key to long-term growth is having a productive and well-equipped workforce. This
theory explains the various factors that contribute to the country's success. The most
important factor to consider when it comes to long-term growth is the quality and strength of
its institutions. Other factors that can also affect a country's prospects are its ideology,
culture, and luck.It is the institutions that determine what kind of activities are acceptable in
any country. Strong institutions promote growth by enforcing the property rights of
individuals and businesses. They create equal rules for all. They reduce the costs of doing
business in the open economy. They also help people get into education and social support.

Governments play many roles in ensuring economic growth, the most prominent of which is
protecting property rights. Political stability is also important for a healthy economy; crime,
poverty, income disparity and armed conflicts can be both a cause and result of poor
economic growth. Governments can help mitigate these problems. Government can also play
a role in the economy by correcting for market failures: dealing with unwanted side effects of
economic activity like pollution, and providing important public services like roads and other
infrastructure. Countries that support research and development, education and scientific
research are likely to improve their supply of technology.
There are 196 countries on the Earth, 25 of them are very rich countries, and 20 of them are
considered very poor. These rich countries are defined as having an average wealth of
$100,000 per person in a year. In poor countries, the capital wealth is about $1,000 per person
in a year, or under $3 a day. Every country is on a path to growth, when the rich countries are
growing really fast, the poor ones are growing very slowly.

There are three factors that help determine whether a country will be rich or poor. The first
factor we have are institutions, the institutions are beyond important, rich countries have very
good institutions while poor ones have very bad institutions. The richest countries in the
world are constantly the least corrupt ones, and the most corrupt countries are constantly the
poorest. When there’s corruption, the country can’t get enough taxes to get the institutions
needed to escape the poverty they have found themselves in. Without an adequate tax base
the poor countries can invest in police, education, health and transport. Because of
corruption, poor countries don’t allow themselves access to the intelligence and talent of the
whole population.

As a second factor we have culture. A static comes up here in relation to religion, the
generalization we have between religion and wealth is that the less people believe, the richer
they stand the chance of being. Nineteen of the richest countries say that religion is not
important at all. The poorest nations are also extremely believing, in the world’s poorest
country everyone is a believer. Religiosity is connected with the idea that the present can’t be
improved, so you should focus and look forward to the future instead. Rich people believe in
their capacity to alter their capacities to alter their future through effort and talent.

The next factor is geography, normally the poor countries are located in tropical areas.This
factor affects the agriculture in countries, tropical plants are generally a lot less packed with
carbohydrates. In history we find that the key determinant in the tendencies of societies
growing rich, was their possession of domesticated animals, such as horses and oxen. It isn’t
only plants and animals that suffer in these tropical areas, humans are also exposed to a
bunch of diseases. At least five percent of the poorest countries are affected by at least five
tropical diseases simultaneously. There’s also the matter of natural resources like oil or
precious metals that can be real trouble, poor countries have a tendency to keep them in
spades.Economist call these resources intensifiers, they will help to make a country with
good institutions richer, but one with bad institutions even poorer, this is called the resources
trap. One of the world’s most mineral rich countries holds most of the world’s coltan.

What is the importance between these factors in determining the wealth of nations? There’s
really no rules to it, but as a guide can suggest that fifty percent of the nation’s wealth comes
down to its institution, twenty percent is due to the culture, and ten percent can be because of
the geography.

There are various definitions of globalization depending on the perspective with which the
topic is approached. Many think of globalization as processes that cause changes that make
people more interconnected and interdependent. Anthropologists acknowledge that all of
these definitions are relevant to the study of globalization and use long-term ethnographic
studies to understand the dynamics of globalization. One thing that makes anthropologists
research on globalization important is that it remains focused on the impact of these global
processes on individuals and cultures. In an anthropological sense, globalization is an
intensification of global interconnectedness, suggesting a world full of movement and
mixture, contact, and persistent cultural interaction.
Cultural homogenization is an aspect of cultural globalization, listed as one of its main
characteristics, and refers to the reduction in cultural diversity through the popularization and
diffusion of a wide array of cultural symbols, not only physical objects but customs, ideas
and values. It is also defined as the process by which local cultures are transformed or
absorbed by a dominant outside culture.

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which not everybody has the same access to the same
rights, opportunities, or equal quality of life. The richest 2% have more wealth than half of
the rest of the world. If we distribute the whole world’s wealth, the big majority owns
practically nothing. Nothing to educate their children nor to pay for health care. The richest
300 people on Earth have the same wealth as the poorest 3 billion. About 200 years ago, rich
countries were only three times richer than poor countries, by the end of colonialism they
were thirty five times richer, and nowadays they are about eighty times richer. Global
inequality involves the concentration of resources in certain nations, significantly affecting
the opportunities of individuals in poorer and less powerful countries.

The concept of dependency theory was created in response to the Western-centric mentality
of modernization. It states that the core nations' exploitation of semi-peripheral nations and
their dependence on them for economic stimulus has created a cycle of dependence, which
will eventually lead to global inequality. This theory states that as long as peripheral nations
are dependent on core nations for economic stimulus and access to a larger piece of the global
economy, they will never achieve stable and consistent economic growth. Further, the theory
states that since core nations, as well as the World Bank, choose which countries to make
loans to, and for what they will loan funds, they are creating highly segmented labour
markets that are built to benefit the dominant market countries. At first glance, it seems this
theory ignores the formerly low-income nations that are now considered middle-income
nations and are on their way to becoming high-income nations and major players in the
global economy, such as China. But some dependency theorists would state that it is in the
best interests of core nations to ensure the long-term usefulness of their peripheral and
semi-peripheral partners.

The global commodity chain is an internationally integrated process of economic links

between corporations and workers whereby commodities are gathered, transformed into
goods and services, and distributed to consumers across the world.

So, in conclusion, what makes some countries rich and others so poor? The answer is simple:
Successful countries have built long-term institutions that promote sustainable growth. While
it is true that economic prosperity can be shared among many, it is also important that the
institutions that support it are sustainable over time. The distribution of wealth is essential to
preserve democracy and prevent the rise of authoritarian rule.
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