Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision US, makes an interesting observation in chapter 10 of his book The Hole in Our Gospel. One of the fundamental assumptions of our worldview is that there is a connection between how hard we work and how much we get paid. This makes sense to us because it is roughly how the world works in the West. Some people get better opportunities than others, but within our individual contexts we can usually see a greater reward for greater effort.
But what would happen if the relationship between reward and hard work was completely severed? That is the situation for a large proportion of the world’s poor today. “They are trapped within social, cultural, political and economic systems that do not reward their labor.” If they work hard to grow more crops, the soldiers or the bandits will come to reap the rewards. If they struggle to earn extra income, corrupt officials will extort the rewards.
A country cannot work its way out of poverty unless it has systems in place which encourage people to engage in productive efforts (that is, allowing people to earn greater rewards for working harder and producing more goods or services) and discourage people from engaging in anti-productive efforts (for example by enforcing laws which punish people for stealing or extortion).