lack access to television or the Internet. It is the perception
and reality of these differences that drive people to cross
the Rio Grande or the Mediterranean Sea illegally to have
the chance to experience rich-country living standards and
opportunities. This inequality doesn’t just have
consequences for the lives of individual people in poor
countries; it also causes grievances and resentment, with
huge political consequences in the United States and
elsewhere. Understanding why these differences exist and
what causes them is our focus in this book. Developing
such an understanding is not just an end in itself, but also a
first step toward generating better ideas about how to
improve the lives of billions who still live in poverty.
The disparities on the two sides of the fence in Nogales
are just the tip of the iceberg. As in the rest of northern
Mexico, which benefits from trade with the United States,
even if not all of it is legal, the residents of Nogales are
more prosperous than other Mexicans, whose average
annual household income is around $5,000. This greater
relative prosperity of Nogales, Sonora, comes from
maquiladora manufacturing plants centered in industrial
parks, the first of which was started by Richard Campbell,
Jr., a California basket manufacturer. The first tenant was
Coin-Art, a musical instrument company owned by Richard
Bosse, owner of the Artley flute and saxophone company in
Nogales, Arizona. Coin-Art was followed by Memorex
(computer wiring); Avent (hospital clothing); Grant
(sunglasses); Chamberlain (a manufacturer of garage door
openers for Sears); and Samsonite (suitcases).
Significantly, all are U.S.-based businesses and
businessmen, using U.S. capital and know-how. The
greater prosperity of Nogales, Sonora, relative to the rest of
Mexico, therefore, comes from outside.
The differences between the United States and Mexico
are in turn small compared with those across the entire
globe. The average citizen of the United States is seven
times as prosperous as the average Mexican and more
than ten times as the resident of Peru or Central America.
She is about twenty times as prosperous as the average
inhabitant of sub-Saharan Africa, and almost forty times as
those living in the poorest African countries such as Mali,
Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. And it’s not just the United