Vested Interests and the Common People in Developing Countries: Understanding Oppressive Societies and Their Effects

The standard economic model of how economies work is that activities are essentially productive. This is not a correct view of reality. The principal difficulty is that there is economic activity that is unproductive and harmful (from the point of view of those being harmed). This is a central feature of the economic organization of these societies, and creates poverty. The first section of the article discusses the concept of harm. The second section describes how societies are run on this basic set of principles: Take and maintain control of the government and other aspects of society, and use the power of government to obtain income. The third section of the article describes how this system harms the common people. Topics include corruption, misappropriation of natural resources, conflict and other harm engendered by the struggle for control, the influence on present society of the past operation of harmful economic systems, and discrimination as well as other “barriers to entry.”