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History shows that, at earlier stages of economic development, corruption is difficult to control. The fact that today no country that is very poor is very clean suggests that a country has to rise above absolute poverty before it can significantly reduce in the system. When people are poor, it is easy to buy their dignity—starving people find it difficult not to sell their votes for a bag of flour, while under-paid civil servants will often fail to resist the temptation to take a bribe. But it is not just a matter of personal dignity. There are also more structural causes.

I try to explain... how to think, rather than what to think.

The foundation of economic development is the acquisition of more productive knowledge.

The historical picture is clear. ing was not invented in modern Asia. When they were backward themselves in terms of knowledge, all of today's rich countries blithely violated other people's patents, s and copyrights. The Swiss 'borrowed' German chemical inventions, while the Germans 'borrowed' English trademarks and the 'borrowed' British copyrighted materials—all without paying what would today be considered 'just' compensation.

Corruption exists because there is too much, not too little, market.

Unlike what neo-liberals say, market and democracy clash at a fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote'. The market runs on the principle of 'one dollar, one vote'. Naturally, the former gives equal weight to each person, regardless of the money she/he has. The latter give greater weight to richer people. Therefore, democratic decisions usually subvert the logic of market.

Democracy is acceptable to neo-liberals only in so far as it does not contradict the free market.

Rich countries have 'kicked away the ladder' by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.

[E]conomics can never be a science in the sense that physics or chemistry is. There are many different types of economic theory, each emphasizing different aspects of a complex reality, making different moral and political value judgments and drawing different conclusions. ...[E]conomic theories constantly fail to predict real-world developments... not least because human beings have... free will, unlike chemical molecules or [other] physical objects.

Democracy and markets are both fundamental building blocks for a decent society. But they clash at a fundamental level. We need to balance them.

I had already seen more of the world, its beauty and misery and sheer surprise, than they could hope or fear to perceive.

Nature , or the body itself, serves as a capable guide. But this subtle guidance goes unheard by most people because of the clamor caused by desire and by the activity of the discriminating mind.