The rich few in the world are getting most of the world's wealth and resources.

- while their country's resources are delivered to rich people far away,
- and their country develop economies which produce for the benefit of rich people far away,
- and they work in plantations and factories mostly for the benefit of people far away, receiving very low wages, or have to remain unemployed

…when they could be far better off if they could put their labour and land into development to meet their needs.

This is the core point; there are far better development options but conventional development makes Third World people work mostly for the benefit of others.

These unjust arrangements are kept in place mainly by the economic system, A market economy forces people to accept work in the plantations and it delivers most resources and wealth to the rich…because they can pay most for things.

But in addition violence is required; military action and oppression are sometimes necessary to keep people in poor countries to conventional economic strategies.

Rich countries have a long and detailed history of assisting Third World regimes willing to force their people to comply with development policies that benefit the rich world, and of intervening with military force to eliminate or install regimes that will do what we want. (For an indication of the massive documentation on this see OUR EMPIRE; Collected Documents.)

Ideological factors are crucial in maintaining the empire.

- most people in rich countries do not know they have and benefit from an empire which involves extreme injustice and brutality…or do not care.
- Economic theory, especially "development" theory, gives the impression that capitalist development is the only possible form of development; it is a powerful ideological force legitimising the systems that enrich the rich and deprive the majority, and excluding any alternative from consideration.
- Governments, media and corporations go to much effort to reinforce the general assumption that rich nations do not exploit an empire -- by never drawing attention to the above points.
- The stupification of rich world publics via TV, sport, consumerism etc
ensures that the existence and functioning of the empire is never thought about.
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For a detailed account see Our Empire; Its Nature and Maintenance. (c 20 pages.). For a large collection of documents on this theme see OUR EMPIRE; Collected Documents.

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