In most cases these countries are extractive economies that ship out this or that raw commodity, using the proceeds to supply their population with imported food and/or consumer goods. In many ways they’ve managed to access portions of the industrialization process—most notably lower mortality, more reliable food supplies, increased urbanization, and population booms—without experiencing the bits that make advancement stick: increased educational levels, a modernized state, a value-added economic system, social progress, industrial development, or technological achievement.
