As of recent estimates, approximately 80% of the world’s population lives in developing countries. The term “developing countries” typically refers to nations with lower income levels, less industrialization, and lower Human Development Index (HDI) scores compared to developed countries. These countries are primarily located in regions such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The exact percentage can vary depending on how “developing country” is defined, but it generally falls within this range.
They have “advantages” in getting loans from international banks, but their infrastructure, healthcare system, educational system and quality of life are not on par with so called developed countries.
A developed country – also called an industrialized country – has a mature and sophisticated economy, usually measured by gross domestic product (GDP) and average income per resident. Developed countries have advanced technological infrastructure and have diverse industrial and service sectors (BDC).
They often tell you they are just lagging. But there is huge explotation from the side of developed countries.
This article shows you that world has so much money, when – if allocated properly – could basically (I will precisely describe the hiccups) make every developing country a developed one.
Official inequality numbers
‘Global wealth Report 2021’, published by Credit Suisse, shows a substantial worldwide increase in wealth inequality during 2020. According to Credit Suisse, wealth distribution pyramid in 2020 shows that the richest group of adult population (1.1%) owns 45.8% of the total wealth.
In the first quarter of 2024, 67 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. (Statista)
The 10,000 wealthiest individuals of the 92 million Indian adults own an average of Rs 22.6 billion ($271.91 million) in wealth, 16,763 times the country’s average, while the top 1% possessing an average of 54 million in wealth. (The Economic Times)
As of late 2022, according to Snopes, 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of U.S. households ($4.5 trillion and $4.1 trillion respectively). The top 1% held a total of $43.45 trillion. (Snopes)
Overall, the top 10% richest own more than the bottom 90% combined, with $95 trillion in wealth. (VisualCapitalist)
An Economy for the 99 Percent (OxfamInternational) found that eight billionaires — all men — have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people on the planet. Based on new data on the global distribution of wealth, particularly in India and China, Oxfam significantly revised down the number of billionaires owning as much as the poorest half of humanity as of a year ago, from sixty-two to nine. Since 2015, the richest 1 percent of the world’s population has accumulated more wealth than the rest of the global population combined.
So who is in the game officially
The eight wealthiest individuals on the planet are Microsoft founder Bill Gates (with a net worth of $75 billion); Amancio Ortega, Spanish founder of Inditex ($67 billion); Warren Buffett, CEO and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway ($60.8 billion); Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Mexican conglomerate Grupo Carso ($50 billion); Jeff Bezos, founder, chair, and CEO of Amazon.com ($45.2 billion); Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, chair, and CEO of Facebook ($44.6 billion); Larry Ellison, co-founder and former CEO of Oracle Corp. ( $43.6 billion); and Michael Bloomberg, founder, owner, and CEO of Bloomberg, Inc. ($40 billion).
Unofficial numbers nobody knows and cannot know
Let me compare it with hunter-gathering groups. Imagine the 1 % of people (official numbers or not) owns 99 % of everything in nowadays capitalism. Then imagine there were 10 000 hunter-gathering groups and 100 of them would own 99 % of the property. It would be unimaginable, yet such perversion is reality and we have the “luck” to live in such a system.
The few Western super-rich families own the vast majority of wealth on this planet. What we know are not the numbers but that their presence is perfectly evidence-based.
Who is in the game unofficially?
The Rothschilds, Warbugs, Rockefellers, Astors, Morgans (the richest after the Rotschshilds) and Vanderbilt, just to name the Big Five. They exert influence over their banking system. A lot of has been writen in terms of influecing political systems. For example, America’s 60 Families (by Ferdinand Lundberg), All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power (by Nomi Prins).
We have global banks with the most influential being Goldman Sachs. They, by te way, have very wicked moral system in my humble opinon.
Global North vs Global South really exists
At first glance, the West appears to be the source of global stability—home to trusted institutions, advanced science, and secure banks. But when you look beneath the surface, a darker reality unfolds. The system they built does not exist to uplift the world. It exists to maintain their dominance. And nowhere is this more evident than in how they exploit the Global South.
This exploitation is not carried out with weapons or soldiers. It is done with financial contracts, trade rules, and currency dependency. It is a soft war, fought in dollars, executed through interest rates, and enforced by institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. These entities, together with Western banks and corporate lobbies, form an unbreakable network—a system built not to develop others but to keep them undeveloped.
Dollar as the most significant thing
At the center of this system is the U.S. dollar. Every country in the Global South needs dollars. Not because they want them, but because the entire world market runs on them. Oil, minerals, even medicine—everything essential is priced in dollars. Without dollars, a country cannot survive. And who controls the dollar? The United States, through the Federal Reserve.
When the Fed raises interest rates, it does not consult Africa or South Asia. But the consequences are immediate. The cost of repaying dollar-denominated loans spikes. Developing countries are forced to choose between paying their debts or funding hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. Often, they choose both—by borrowing more. The trap tightens.
To access more funds, countries turn to the IMF or the World Bank. But these institutions never offer help without conditions. They demand “structural adjustments”: slash public spending, sell your state industries, open your markets to foreign investors. This sounds like modernization, but it is economic sabotage. Local industries collapse under competition. Western corporations move in, buy everything, and extract profits. And the developing country is left poorer than before—again.
Western interconnected banks
This is not a system of cooperation. It is a system of enforced dependence. Every dollar borrowed tightens the leash. Countries trapped in debt must take on new loans to repay the old ones. It never ends. Even when a nation is rich in resources, it does not escape. Oil, gas, gold, rare earths—these should be assets. But they are exploited by foreign companies under contracts negotiated by weak or desperate governments. The profits go to New York and London. The pollution, corruption, and poverty stay behind.
Trade, too, is a lie. The West decides what developing countries can export and import. The WTO claims to level the playing field, but the rules favor the powerful. Rich countries protect their industries. Poor countries are told to compete. But they are allowed to export only low-value goods—coffee, cotton, rubber—while being denied access to high-tech markets. When they try to move up the value chain, the doors close.
Manipulating commodity prices
Then there is the manipulation of commodity prices. Major Western banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan control the global exchanges. Through speculation, they raise or crash prices—never to help producers, always to profit from volatility. When the price of oil or cocoa drops, entire countries fall into crisis. They cannot plan, they cannot invest. And they cannot grow.
Even technology is weaponized. Intellectual property laws ensure that life-saving medicines, advanced machinery, and clean energy systems remain locked behind Western patents. If a country dares to copy or innovate, it risks lawsuits, sanctions, or worse. So it must import technology—at high prices—from the very countries that profit from its weakness.
Then there is capital flight. Every year, billions leave the Global South through offshore accounts, money laundering, and elite corruption. Western banks welcome this money. They do not ask questions. They do not return it. The wealth of entire nations sits in tax havens while their people live without clean water.
Developing countries: Debt traps
Sanctions complete the trap. Any country that resists, that tries to break free, is punished. Assets are frozen. Trade is blocked. Financial networks like SWIFT are cut off. This is not diplomacy. It is strangulation. And the world watches, thinking this is normal.
Even environmental policy becomes a tool of control. The West, after centuries of polluting the Earth, now imposes strict green standards on the very countries they impoverished. But these nations cannot afford solar panels and wind farms—they must buy them from Western corporations. This is not justice. It is a new form of colonialism painted green.
So what is left? A world where the Global South is chained—by contracts, currencies, and conditions. A world where aid is debt, trade is theft, and investment is extraction. The West does not need to invade. It only needs to lend. That is enough to control governments, rewrite constitutions, and decide who eats.
This is the real reason so many countries cannot rise. Not because they lack resources, but because they are forbidden to use them for their own benefit. The entire system ensures that wealth flows in one direction. From the poor to the rich, from the periphery to the core. From the Global South to the West.
And until that changes, independence is a myth. Flags wave. Presidents speak. Parliaments debate. But none of it matters—because the money is not theirs. The rules are not theirs. And the future, unless this system is broken, will never be theirs either.
Developed country? Every country should be Westernized
I have often asked myself whether encouraging non-Western freethinkers to adopt Western values is an act of cultural arrogance. At first glance, it may seem colonial—just another way the West tries to impose its worldview on others, as it has done for centuries. But the more I look around, the more I question the idea that all cultural norms deserve equal respect. When I see people punished for apostasy, women silenced for questioning authority, or entire communities living in fear of blasphemy laws, I cannot pretend these are just harmless traditions.
I have come to believe that values like freedom of speech, individual autonomy, and secular thought are not just Western—they are human. They give voice to the oppressed, shield dissenters, and allow people like me to question the society we are born into. So no, I do not see it as an imposition. I see it as a rescue rope thrown across the wall of silence.
Western thought not idealized
Still, I do not idealize the West. I know its history. I know about the wars waged in the name of freedom that brought only chaos and I see how wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, and how Western countries often betray their own principles when power or profit is at stake. But strangely, that is exactly what convinces me those values are worth preserving. Because when Western governments fail, Western citizens speak out. They protest, write, debate, demand better. They expect justice, equality, and accountability—because those ideas were planted in their cultural soil long ago. I envy that. In many parts of the world, we do not even have the language to make such demands. So I look to the West not for perfection, but for a moral architecture that allows criticism without persecution. That, to me, is priceless.
I want freethinkers in my region, in my tradition, to have that same architecture. I do not believe critical thought belongs to one civilization. It can be found anywhere. But the structures that protect it—free media, secular courts, open dialogue—have been institutionalized more deeply in the West. I want that for us too. I want a society where people are not jailed for thinking differently, where questions are seen as signs of intelligence, not rebellion. Western values, as flawed as their implementation may be, offer a pathway toward that freedom. So when I speak of Westernization, I do not mean abandoning identity. I mean arming ourselves with the tools to challenge oppression—wherever it comes from.
The super-rich should invest, thefore controlling the countries
If there isn’t any monetary gain by investing in such countries, the good idea for the super-rich is having a control over the countries.
Imagine China being bought by Western super-rich groups.
Suddenly, no torture of people, animals and when an accident happens, everyone is going to help, unlike despicable Chinese tradition not to come close as you would be involved in the whole accident.
Why the all-investing isn’t possible?
The first thing is definitely corruption, vast array of patron-client system.
Second, their own super-rich have other interests. Third, it is the division South and North.
And last but not least, the ideological barriers. Chinese politicians are more than affraid of fredom of speech, civic society, human rights (both in civic and economic terms).
Developing country: What to do?
Citizens of both developed and developing countries should strike.
They should make the rich to pay its ill-earned money through wicked capitalist logic (not saying capitalism doesn’t have advantages)
Total strike would paralyzed the countries and something would happen.
What would developing countries be like?
Top education system from bottom to upper levels. China would compete (or not) with the USA.
No rote memory taks, Middle Ages-like schooling system. There would be system boosting creatity. China would find its Elon Musk, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.
The vast poll of genius would make China “the smartest country on the earth”.
All of the remaining countries would go the same way.
Health care
A developed country does not let people die for lack of medicine. It does not let families go bankrupt because their child got sick. In a real healthcare system, access is guaranteed, not dependent on luck or class. Hospitals are clean. Doctors are trained. Medication is affordable. Emergencies get answers, not delays. Preventive care works before disaster strikes. People trust their system, not fear it. In the developing world, this is often just a dream. Corrupt procurement, outdated facilities, and unaffordable treatments dominate. No country deserves the title “developed” unless its people can see a doctor without begging or borrowing.
Get rid of corruption
Corruption is the enemy of development. It eats institutions from the inside. It steals from budgets, strangles merit, and turns justice into a joke. When officials award contracts to friends, schools collapse. When bribes decide jobs, talent leaves. Nothing can function under a system where rules are for sale. Developed countries may still have corruption, but they punish it. They investigate, they demand transparency. And they build watchdogs, not mafias. In the Global South, entire networks operate with impunity. Until these are broken—by law, by public pressure, by exposure—progress remains fake. There is no such thing as a rich, rotten state.
High-income economies
High income is not about luxury. It is about dignity. When people earn enough to cover their needs, save money, and invest in their future, they participate in the economy. They care about the system. They build families and businesses. Developed countries make this possible. Their workers get paid decently, their industries reward productivity. And their middle class is real. In contrast, developing countries often rely on subsistence wages. People work full-time and remain poor. They skip meals to send kids to school. That is not development—it is stagnation disguised as growth. Any serious roadmap forward must begin by raising incomes. No nation ever rose by underpaying its own people.
Developed country: Safety net
A real social safety net does not wait until collapse. It acts early, quietly, and reliably. In a developed country, no one ends up on the street because they got sick or lost their job. Unemployment benefits arrive without humiliation. Pension systems support the elderly with dignity. Housing assistance prevents families from falling into homelessness. Disability programs do not require begging for approval. Maternity leave is not a luxury. Childcare subsidies give parents a choice. These systems do not weaken ambition—they protect human potential. Without a functioning safety net, talent disappears, fear grows, and society fragments. A nation cannot call itself developed if it abandons people the moment they slip.
A utopia: developing countries never be developed
I must coscede this is not reality. Those who own hundreds of trillions see no sense in helping – actually it is a weakness.
All the shadow players play their power games, never allow the system to benefit the normal, poor or rich citizens.
Politicians have their own stupid animalistic ideology, leaving people to accept the most animalistic instincts.
In the human optics, the developed countries remain developed, developing remain developing.
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