ABSTRACT
The business practices discovered by AS indicate the policies, attitudes, and behavior patterns required if the poor are to function successfully in a complex, materialist society. This chapter considers that three factors "produce" income equity: economic structure, economic policies, and the personal qualities of the poor. The belief that understanding complex socioeconomic systems is a gradual achievement is supported by the histories of shopkeepers and small producers of foreign origin, such as Chinese in Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, and Portuguese and Italians in Argentina and Brazil. In both small-scale business and small-scale farming, it would appear that cooperation is a useful vehicle for gaining experience in complex organization. A society may become more complex, not only in the ways material goods are produced and exchanged, but also in the ways in which prestige is obtained.
