The End of Poverty? (2008) on Netflix

Plot summary

Severe poverty in underdeveloped countries is set against the prosperity of developed ones, and the imbalance is traced to Europe's colonization of the Americas beginning in 1492. Interviewed scholars, historians and activists describe how plundered wealth, seized land and forced labor on plantations and in mines enrich Europe and pay for its industrialization, while colonial economies are steered into exporting raw materials and buying finished goods. After most colonies win political independence, institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund sustain the arrangement through loans, repayment obligations and conditions that open trade, capital markets and public services to outside investors. Interviewees also cite military and covert interventions by the United States. They propose debt forgiveness and communal control of natural resources as ways to cut poverty.