CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

“
PART II
INEQUALITY:
THE GAP MATTERS
Now the big challenge and threat is the gap in wealth and health that
separates rich and poor. ... Here is the greatest single problem and
danger facing the world of the Third Millennium. 1
—David S. Landes, 1998
Well, forget convergence—the overwhelming feature of modern
economic history is a massive divergence in per capita incomes between
rich and poor countries, a gap which is continuing to grow today. 2
—Lant Pritchett, 1996
PLEASE, PLEASE, I beg you. Take my son to America. Let him be part of
your family! I beg you! I beg you!”
I’ve witnessed the effects of dirty money on poverty in all six inhabited
continents, but the most poignant incident is this one. The impact on me
was so powerful that it led to the writing of this book.
On one of my periodic trips abroad I asked my colleagues in Nigeria to
arrange for me to see Mary, the nanny who had taken care of our children
when they were infants. We had hired Mary in Lagos in 1972 before Deren
was born in New York. She was a cheerful, slight-framed woman in her thirties,
with small tribal marks on her cheeks, indicating that she was from the
Calabar area in the southeast of the country. Upon returning to Nigeria, she
was gentle and loving with our one-month-old son and became attached to
him, as he did to her. It took her some time to master the admittedly difficult
207