Extreme poverty should not exist, period. The fact that up to 17 percent of the world population lives in extreme poverty today (according to Robert Allen’s data on cost-of-basic-needs poverty) should be understood as an indictment of our economic system.8 It is a sign that severe social dislocation remains institutionalized in the capitalist world economy. Yes, the prevalence of extreme poverty is lower today than it was at the height of the colonial period, but this is not sufficient reason for celebration. The colonial high-water mark was an effect of capitalist policy and should never have existed.

Two hundred years ago, 84% of the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, 90% don’t. 83% didn’t have a basic education. Today, 86% do. 1% lived in a democracy. Today just 44% don’t. The child mortality rate was 43%. Today, it’s 4%.

There was a situation of a "zero venture fund zone" aimed at supporting local nationals across all Sub-Saharan African countries, where approximately 70 percent of the population lived in poverty.

South Korea and Ghana had the same income per capita in the 1950s. One received far more aid, advice and political intervention than the other. It is now by far the poorer of the two. In general, Asian economies grew their way out of poverty in the late twentieth century, while African economies failed to be aided out of poverty. Trade, not aid, proved the best way to achieve an increase in prosperity.

Today, some 4.3 billion people – more than 60 per cent of the – live in debilitating poverty, struggling to survive on less than the equivalent of $5 per day. Half do not have access to enough food. And these numbers have been growing steadily over the past few decades. Meanwhile, the wealth of the very richest is piling up to levels unprecedented in human history. As I write this, it has just been announced that the eight richest men in the world have as much wealth between them as the poorest half of the world's population combined.

offer these stats (some of the many such facts I like to share on my Twitter feed and podcast): Two hundred years ago, 84% of the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, 90% don’t. 83% didn’t have a basic education. Today, 86% do. 1% lived in a democracy. Today just 44% don’t. The child mortality rate was 43%. Today, it’s 4%. All thanks to the free market socialists want to destroy. If anything, economic growth rates and progress have slowed in the past few decades as the welfare state, to which the socialists give all the credit for such advances, grew. The new socialists and Democrats steadfastly ignore these facts. And it is this delusion that makes the MAGA Doctrine more important than ever.

The poverty of most Asian countries, and the alarming extremes of social and economic inequality to be found in them, derive from and are maintained by their stagnant social and religious institutions (like the caste-system in India), which as popularly understood and practised, are often "a tremendous force of social inertia". But it would be unfair and unrealistic to stop here. For Asia's underdevelopment is at least equally the result of induced socioeconomic processes.

The military dictators and government bureaucrats have only proven that they know how to spend money on pomp and circumstance, but not how to dismantle the last vestiges of colonialism in South Africa or defeat Western neocolonialist intrigues. Africa is still the poorest of the World’s continents, while materially the richest. The contrast is clear: millions of people are starving in much of Equatorial Africa, but the tribal chiefs, politicians and military dictators, are driving around in Mercedes and living in luxury villas, while they do the bidding of West European and American bankers through the International Monetary Fund. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution!

One-fifth of the world’s population, around 1,200 million people in the developing world, are living in official, absolute poverty...on less than $1 a day. They live miserable, stunted lives, deprived of all we take for granted. More than 30 million of them are actually dying of starvation in a world in which there is no shortage of food... We are so complacent that we do not even take it seriously. We think it is normal... Maitreya says: “How can you watch these people die before your eyes and call yourselves men?” p. 15

Yet despite the progress our continent has made over the past 40 years, Africa continues to be weakened by the ills of underdevelopment. Today, 33 of the world's 48 least developed countries are African countries. In other words, three fifths of the States of our continent belong to that group of countries that are lagging behind in the pursuit of development.

Africa is not poor, it is however still for a very large percentage, poorly run.

These are countries that started with higher levels of poverty incidence than our country but have successfully managed to lessen, if not virtually eliminate, extreme poverty.

The peoples of Asia and Africa created brilliant ancient civilizations and made tremendous contributions to mankind. But, ever since modern times most of the countries of Asia and Africa in varying degrees have been subjected to colonial plunder and oppression, and have thus been forced to remain in a stagnant state of poverty and backwardness. Our voices have been suppressed, our aspirations shattered, and our destiny placed in the hands of others. Thus, we have no choice but to rise against colonialism.

It is particularly galling to read a United Nation country report released in April 2008 that "poverty reduction in the Philippines has logged far behind that of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China.