However, if bountiful resources were the source of wealth, South America and Africa would be rich instead of being mired in poverty. Hong Kong, Japan and England, natural resources-poor nations, would be poor instead of rich. Development experts and foreign-aid hustlers would have us believe that past colonialism accounts for Third World poverty. That explanation ignores the fact that United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong have a colonial history and are rich while Nepal, Tibet, Liberia and Ethiopia were never colonies and are among the world's poorest nations. Mankind's history is mostly one of grinding poverty.
Poverty is no mystery.
People are poor because they can't produce things highly valued by their fellow man. The real mystery is how did a tiny portion of mankind's population, for only a tiny part of his history, manage to escape poverty. We don't have all the answers but there are some useful clues. One tendency is greater personal liberty that includes greater protection and respect for both the person and his property. The people are free to engage in peaceable voluntary exchange to a much greater extent than their poorer counterparts.