Poverty doesn't kill. Nature kills you. Wealth just reduces the effect nature has on you (food, clothing, shelter, healthcare etc).
We've known about the solution to poverty since the 18th century (free trade - aka capitalism) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations but the solution isn't popular among intellectuals, despite the correlation of free trade and per capita GDP (admittedly crude but one the more objective measures available).
The current state of the third world was caused by the UK and others encouraging places like Africa and India to follow the socialist model in the post collonial era after World War 2.
The extent to which former collonies have prospered is the extent to which they ignored that advice (Singapore, India since 1990 etc) http://mises.org/books/conquest.pdf
I agree. Though poverty can kill in at least one more way than not sheltering you from nature, somewhat more directly.
Social status is a positional good. I.e. relative affluence counts more than absolute affluence. High status people have better health etc than low status people. This seems to be at least partly a psychologic effect.
We've known about the solution to poverty since the 18th century (free trade - aka capitalism) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations but the solution isn't popular among intellectuals, despite the correlation of free trade and per capita GDP (admittedly crude but one the more objective measures available).
http://www.investmentu.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/200601...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/e/e2/2...
http://images.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimage...
http://www.invest.is/resources/images/invest.is/News/Index05...
The current state of the third world was caused by the UK and others encouraging places like Africa and India to follow the socialist model in the post collonial era after World War 2.
The extent to which former collonies have prospered is the extent to which they ignored that advice (Singapore, India since 1990 etc) http://mises.org/books/conquest.pdf