Global capitalism Why is it that only two large developing capitalist economies* have succeeded in becoming part of the rich capitalist club in the last 50 years ? Measured in GDP per capita and starting at $3000 per head (PPP real) 40 years ago, Taiwan and Korea now have per capita GDPs over $25,000. In the same period, no other Asian tiger or Latin American economy has risen above $13,000, still within the World B ank‘s middle income range. Note that both Taiwan and South Korea were American-supported military regimes at the peak of their economic development. *United Arab Emirates or Singapore, for example, cannot be called "large capitalist economies" although they have a very high per capita GDP.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51