It is easy to get too wrapped up in numbers, so it may be useful to make a few simple head-to-head comparisons. Consider North Korea and South Korea. Both emerged from World War II with shattered economies, only to fight each other in the Korean War.

There is another compelling difference between capitalist and noncapitalist countries that sheds light on what the future may bring. In the thirty-five most capitalist countries of the world, fewer than 1 percent of children under the age of 15 are working rather than in school. In the thirty-five least capitalist nations, one child of every six under the age of 15 is working rather than being in school—a rate nearly twenty times higher.

Thus, for the poorest 10 percent of the population in highly capitalist countries, average per capita income is about $8,700 per year (or just under $35,000 per year for a family of four). For the poorest 10 percent of the population in the least capitalist countries, average income is under $950 per year (about $3,800 for a family of four).

Consider the thirty-five most capitalist nations in the world. On average, the poorest 10 percent of the population receives about 2.5 percent of total income in these countries. Indeed, if we look across all countries, we see that although there is some variation from nation to nation, the poorest 10 percent of the population typically gets between 2.0 and 2.5 percent of total income.

Once we get down to the thirty-five least capitalist nations, average income has dropped to but $3,900 per year. And because rates of economic growth are also higher in more capitalist nations, the differences in income between the most and least capitalist nations are growing over time. 1 Of course, this is a chapter about poverty, and the average income in a nation may bear little relation to the income earned by its poorest residents.