ABSTRACT
Some countries are rich and others poor. Many laypeople assume this must be because the rich countries have better resources, or profited from legacies of colonialism and slavery. On the contrary, economics shows us that the rich countries are rich because they had better institutions, while colonialism and slavery were not “profitable.” This chapter includes a thorough critique of the so-called “New History of Capitalism,” showing that the New Historians are not only incompetent, but in many cases downright dishonest.
