It took me 30 years living on and off in the 3rd world to spot what is going on. The World Bank is busy explaining to everyone that capitalism will save the 3rd world, but without explaining that the Capitalism in the 3rd world is not the same Capitalism which is bringing prosperity to the developed World. In the West, the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided approximately 80% to the workers and 20% to the owners; in the 3rd world, the proportions are reversed - the value-added in the production of goods or services is divided 20% to the workers and 80% to the owners. In fact sometimes it is 97% to the owners, but the principle is there…

We all know that increasing the income of a poor man by 10% means that the increase gets spent and goes round and round in the economy (a multiplier effect); whereas increasing the income of a rich man by 10% means that he hordes it in a bank or in a hole in the ground, and the spin-off is zero or extremely limited.

Add to this the fact that the elites (of all colours) in much of the 3rd world do not plough their money (fairly or unfairly earned) back into their own economies – they externalize it to Switzerland or some other secretive tax-haven.

And then the World Bank tells the 3rd world that they must attract foreign investment – when that same World Bank knows full well what these 3rd world elites are doing. That foreign investment which the country is trying (and probably failing) to attract is the same money which has been externalized unofficially (it sounds better than illegally) by their own elites.

Thus we have a deception on a grand scale, where the losers are the 3rd world workers who have to get by on the 20% of the value which they add, and the average citizen in the West, who has to subscribe financially and politically to the nonsense which the World Bank (and even international NGO’s and charities) peddles.

The 20/80 thing is real – I have seen it affect directly (and I have calculated the numbers for ) at least 2 members of my wife’s family here in sunny Zimbabwe Africa.

This also explains some of the scandal to do with people like Nike in the 3rd world – foreign companies are in the 3rd world because of the enormous profits to be made under the 20/80 system. They behave no worse than local companies (and often much better).

And if you really think about it also, capitalism in the West used to be of the 20/80 variety.