This article aims to analyze the genesis of the wealth and poverty of nations and to point out solutions for poor nations to develop. The world began to face many years ago with the existence of very few rich countries that present advanced economic and social development alongside the vast majority of poor countries with precarious economic and social development. Many ask: what is the explanation for the central capitalist countries having reached a high level of economic and social development and the other countries not? There are several answers to this question. One of them is that the core capitalist countries have developed essential competences to promote economic, scientific and technological development. But the main answer is that the central capitalist countries accumulated a large volume of capital during colonialism from the 14th to the 17th centuries and imperialism from the 18th to the 20th centuries with the looting they carried out in the countries they dominated and also in the current stage of neoliberal globalization. The relationship of dependence of poor, peripheral and semi-peripheral countries on world capitalism will only come to an end with the disappearance of the capitalist world system and the adoption throughout the world of a new model of society that ensures economic and social progress for all countries and not just for a very few countries. This new model would require the existence of a world government to ensure the functioning of a new world order that guarantees equity in the development process of nations and the implementation of the Welfare State along the lines of that practiced in Scandinavian countries with the necessary adaptation to each country because it is the most successful social system ever implemented in the world..

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THE GENESIS OF THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to analyze the genesis of the wealth and poverty of nations and to point out
solutions for poor nations to develop. There is an almost unanimous misconception that individual
wealth results from the individual's ability to achieve this goal and that people who do not achieve
it are incapable. This thought also has a racist nature in attributing to white people a greater
capacity than those of black or mixed race to become rich. Those who think like that do not realize
that people of color or mestizo are among those socially marginalized, which is why they do not
have the same opportunities for social advancement that whites have. This same thought is also
extended to countries and/or peoples that have developed more than others. It is commonplace to
attribute greater capacity to white peoples of European origin to promote the economic
development of their countries.
This mistaken thought is explained by the fact that Europe was the cradle of the Renaissance,
which originated in the 14th century in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, being in force until
the 16th century, of the Commercial Revolution, which represents a great period of
transformations that took place in Europe between the 16th and 18th century, the Scientific
Revolution, which began in the 16th century and lasted until the 18th century, the Industrial
Revolution, which began in England in the second half of the 18th century, spread around the
world, causing great transformations and ensured the emergence of industry and consolidated the
process of formation of capitalism in central capitalist countries. This misguided thinking can also
be explained by attributing to white peoples of European origin a greater capacity to promote the
economic development of their countries because some European countries followed by the
United States have reached a high level of economic and social development as well higher than
that of most countries in the world.
The world has been faced for many years with the existence of very few rich countries that present
advanced economic and social development alongside the vast majority of poor countries with
precarious economic and social development (Figure 1). In Figure 1, the countries in red are rich
countries and the others are poor countries. The real explanation for the existence in the
contemporary era of few rich nations and many poor nations lies in the fact that, according to the
American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, the world economy is governed by a system, the
capitalist world-system that is composed of a division between center, periphery and
semiperiphery, which emerged in the 16th century at the beginning of the globalization process
with the great navigations inaugurated with the discovery of America. The most developed
countries in the world form the center of the world-system which form the organic core of the
world capitalist economy, that is, the countries of Western Europe (Belgium, Netherlands,
Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany , Austria, Switzerland,
France, United Kingdom and Italy), North America (United States and Canada), Oceania
(Australia and New Zealand) and Japan. For Wallerstein, the center is the area of great
technological development that produces complex products; the periphery is the area that supplies
raw materials, agricultural products and cheap labor to the center. The economic exchange
between periphery and center is unequal: the periphery has to sell its products cheaply while
buying products from the center dearly. As for the semiperiphery, it is a region of intermediate
development that functions as a center for the periphery and a periphery for the center
(WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. The modern world system - Vol. 1, 2, 3. Berkeley and Los Angelis:
University of California Press, 2011).
The semiperiphery is characterized by Wallerstein as a necessary structural element for
performing a stabilizing role between rich and poor countries in the international system similar
to that of the middle class within the configuration of classes in a country. The semiperiphery
would also assume a role, in the words of the Italian economist Giovanni Arrighi, of “systemic
legitimacy”, showing the Periphery that there is the possibility of mobility within the international
division of labor for those who are sufficiently “capable” and/or “well behaved”. According to
Arrighi, the semiperipheral condition is described as one in which a significant number of national

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states such as Brazil remain permanently parked between central and peripheral conditions, and
which, despite having undergone far-reaching social and economic transformations, continue to
relatively late in important aspects [ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento) The
illusion of development. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997].
Figure 1- Map of the geographic distribution of the wealth of nations
Source: https://mtviewmirror.com/john-lockes-ideas-on-property-in-a-modern-world/
The world-system theory had as its formulator Immanuel Wallerstein and as its main thinkers
André Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi and Theotonio dos Santos, intellectuals
linked to the “theory of dependence”, who claim that “dependence” expresses subordination of
peripheral and semi-peripheral countries in relation to the central capitalist countries whose
economic backwardness was not forged by their agrarian-exporting condition or by their pre-
capitalist heritage, considered by some economists, but by the pattern of capitalist development
dependent on the country and by its subordinate insertion in the world capitalism. In the
understanding of Wallerstein and other thinkers linked to the “theory of dependence”, overcoming
the underdevelopment of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should result from the end of
dependence and not from the modernization and industrialization of the economy as advocated,
for example, by ECLAC (Commission Economics for Latin America) in the 1950s and by
numerous Brazilian economists. The facts of reality confirm, for example, the mistake that
Brazil's development has been dependent on foreign capital and foreign technology adopted from
1955 onwards with the Juscelino Kubitscheck government and that this dependence has deepened
with the adoption of the neoliberal economic model since 1990.
Many ask: what is the explanation for the central capitalist countries having reached a high level
of economic and social development and the other countries not? There are several answers to
this question. One of them is that the core capitalist countries have developed essential
competences to promote economic, scientific and technological development. But the main
answer is that the central capitalist countries accumulated a large volume of capital during
colonialism from the 14th to the 17th centuries and imperialism from the 18th to the 20th centuries
with the looting they carried out in the countries they dominated and also in the current stage of
neoliberal globalization. During colonialism, many of them exercised political, economic, cultural
and religious domination over the peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. This

3. 3
domain was exercised through military force to explore, maintain and expand its territory. This
practice took place without the consent of the colonized peoples, who with exploitation lost part
of their assets (soil, natural resources, housing), in addition to suffering the practice of genocide
of indigenous populations that resisted colonialist domination. Faced with resistance from
indigenous peoples, many colonialist countries in the Americas adopted the slavery of Africans.
In this way, the colonial power managed to develop at the expense of the exploitation of enslaved
indigenous and African populations and of the riches taken from the exploited colonies, which
became increasingly part of the exploiting empire and hostages to its orders.
England, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, among others were
colonialist countries. Colonialism was the political, economic and cultural doctrine that supported
the control exercised by a colonialist metropolis, through administrative and military imposition,
over a colony. European colonialism demonstrated its strength by dominating many countries in
the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. This domination meant the expansion of the territory of
the colonialist powers. England had an increase of 10 million km2 in its territory, France increased
9 million km2, Germany increased 2.5 million km2 and Belgium and Italy had an increase of 2
million km2 in their territory. Portugal, for example, had Brazil as colony with 8.5 million km2,
in addition to territories in Africa and Asia.
Another explanation for why the central capitalist countries have reached a high level of economic
and social development is the imperialism they exercised from the 2nd Industrial Revolution in
1850 until 1990, when neoliberal globalization was adopted. Imperialism represented the
continuity of colonialism with the adoption of a policy of expansion and territorial, cultural and
economic domination of a dominant nation over others. Unlike colonialism, in which the
colonizer exercised his domination directly or through agents, in imperialism, domination was
made economically and culturally to ensure that the capitalization of imperialist nations was
expanded. The characteristics of imperialism are the following: 1) Dominant classes of the great
capitalist powers use the imperialist State aiming at their expansion, mainly from the economic
submission of other nations; 2) Dominant imperialist state exerts political, cultural or economic
influence over dominated nations, whether formally or informally; 3) Action based on
ethnocentric ideas and social Darwinism (superiority of the dominant peoples in relation to the
dominated); 4) Process of expansion of the capitalism of the great powers; and, 5) Industrial
capital merged with finance capital. The imperialist countries sought to obtain three resources
from the dominated countries: 1) Sources of raw material and energy; 2) Domain of the consumer
market; and, 3) Cheap labor.
United States, Japan, England, France, Germany, Belgium and Italy, in addition to other nations
such as Portugal, Spain, tsarist Russia, etc., practiced imperialist policies. The influence of
imperialism on the planet was such that continents such as Africa, Latin America and Asia still
reap the negative consequences of this process of colonial and imperialist domination. At the end
of the 19th century, the imperialist countries launched a race for the conquest of world power that
unleashed great rivalry between them and was the main cause of the 1st and 2nd World War. The
First and Second World War led to the end of colonialism that lost strength, thanks to the political
emancipation of the former colonies, gave birth to US imperialism and also led to the end of
German, Italian and Japanese imperialism.
Finally, the other explanation for why the core capitalist countries have reached a high level of
economic and social development is the adoption of neoliberal globalization since 1990.
Peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries such as Brazil face problems of
deindustrialization, rising unemployment, economic stagnation and public indebtedness growing.
Neoliberal globalization has contributed to increasing the economic, financial and technological
dependence of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries in the world. Neoliberal globalization has
contributed to the existence of the chaos that dominates the world economy, which tends to
worsen in the coming years. One fact is evident: the transformation from a peripheral or semi-
peripheral capitalist country to the condition of a developed country is quite difficult to carry out,
not only because of the global action imposed by international capital that, even not currently

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adopting the colonialism and imperialism of the past, still maintains hostages to the vast majority
of national governments and the international political and economic bodies through which it
control the world economy with the imposition of neoliberal globalization.
Another difficulty in transforming a peripheral or semi-peripheral capitalist country into a
developed country was demonstrated by Arrighi in his work The illusion of development. Arrighi
states that, after World War II, Japan and Italy were the only countries that moved from the
condition of semi-peripheral countries of the world economy to that of members of the core of
developed countries, and South Korea was the only country on the periphery of the world
economy capitalist world-system that evolved to the condition of a semiperipheral country
[ARRIGHI, Giovanni. A ilusão do desenvolvimento (The illusion of development). Petrópolis:
Vozes, 1997). In the same way as South Korea, Brazil evolved from the condition of a peripheral
to a semi-peripheral country from 1930 to 1980. The thesis that prevailed after the Second World
War that it would be possible for all peripheral and semi-peripheral nations to reach the stage of
high level of development enjoyed by the central capitalist countries, especially the United States,
has not been realized. From the second half of the 20th century onwards, there were several
attempts to promote economic and social development in several countries around the world that
failed, either those within the framework of capitalism with national developmentalism adopted,
for example, in Brazil and those with the implementation of the socialism.
In view of what has just been exposed, it is concluded that the wealth and development of central
capitalist countries and the poverty and underdevelopment of peripheral and semi-peripheral
countries are the sides of the same coin. They are interdependent processes. Rich nations, that is,
the core capitalist countries, achieved the status of highly developed because they looted and
continue to loot poor nations, that is, the peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries. The
underdevelopment of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries results from the relationship of
economic and technological dependence and exploitation to which they are subjected in relation
to the central capitalist countries. The gains of the central capitalist countries are largely the result
of the losses of the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. This relationship is similar to that
between wealth and poverty among individuals. This means that with the model of capitalist
society there is no way to avoid the relationship of dependence of peripheral and semi-peripheral
countries in relation to central capitalist countries. The dependency relationship of peripheral and
semi-peripheral countries will only come to an end with the disappearance of the capitalist world
system and the adoption throughout the world of a new model of society that ensures economic
and social progress for all countries and not just for a very few countries. This new model would
require the existence of a world government to ensure the functioning of a new world order that
guarantees equity in the development process of nations and the implementation of the Welfare
State along the lines of that practiced in Scandinavian countries with the necessary adaptation to
each country because it is the most successful social system ever implemented in the world.
I advocate the adoption of Keynesianism in economic planning that would operate, not only at
the national level to achieve economic stability and full employment of factors in each country,
but also at the global level to eliminate the global economic chaos that currently prevails with
neoliberalism. Keynesianism should also be adopted at the planetary level in order to ensure
economic stability and full employment of factors globally. With Keynesianism, there would be
the coordination of Keynesian economic policies at a planetary level that would only be carried
out with the existence of a world government. This would be the way to regulate the world
economy to eliminate the chaos that characterizes neoliberal globalization. The elimination of
chaos or attenuation of instability and uncertainty with its turbulence and its risks in the world
economy will only be achieved with the existence of a world government that would act to ensure
the coordination between the Keynesian economic policies adopted in each country. To be
effective, the world government must adopt the Keynesian economic planning process that helps
to eliminate instability and uncertainty with its turmoil and risks.
In addition to the adoption of a world government, each country should abandon the neoliberal
economic model and replace it with social democracy along the Scandinavian lines, because it is

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the most successful model of society in the world, characterized by the combination of a broad
Welfare State with rigid mechanisms to regulate market forces based on Keynesianism with the
ability to put the economy on a dynamic trajectory. The Nordic or Scandinavian model of social
democracy could best be described as a kind of middle ground between capitalism and socialism,
being the attempt to fuse the most desirable elements of both into a "hybrid" system. The choice
of Scandinavian social democracy as a model of society to be adopted is due to the fact that the
UN World Happiness Report 2020 shows that the happiest nations in the world are concentrated
in Northern Europe. The role of the State is decisive in order to develop the conditions to increase
technical progress and make the process of capital accumulation viable in peripheral and semi-
peripheral countries of the world economy.
In order to achieve the goals of creating a world government and implementing the Welfare State
in each country, a World Forum for Peace and the Progress of Humanity must be constituted by
the governments of peripheral and semi-peripheral countries and by organizations of the Society
Civilian of these countries of the world. In this Forum, the objectives and strategies of a world
movement for the constitution of a world government and the implementation of the Welfare State
in each peripheral and semi-peripheral country would be debated and established, in order to make
a world of peace and progress for all humanity a reality. Until these goals are achieved, it is urgent
to adopt the national developmental economic model of selective opening of the Brazilian
economy that would allow Brazil to assume the directions of its destiny, contrary to the neoliberal
model that makes the country's future dictated by market forces, all of them committed to
international capital. The evils caused by neoliberalism in the world do not recommend the
election, in Brazil, of candidates for the Presidency of the Republic and of parliamentarians who
insist on maintaining the neoliberal economic model that contributed to the economic and social
disaster in which the Brazilian nation is debating. Candidates with neoliberal programs must be
repelled by true Brazilian patriots.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 82, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of
strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the
books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem
Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os
condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de
Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora
Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos
na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica,
Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate
ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores
Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no
Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua
convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o
mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019) and A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência
(Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021) .