I think it should go to nukes. Bear with me, I'm serious. When you look back at history war is nearly always the cause for the greatest suffering. It causes starvation, 'involuntary migration', and so many other things. Whatever has been built up in an area, it does a wonderful job of tearing down. Look at Libya for one of the most stark examples. Libya was steadily developing and seeing increased prosperity. Now, it's been reduced to neglected, unstable, and impoverished rubble since we 'freed' them.

And this didn't used to just be a story of Mideastern nations. This was the story of the world. The one thing that changed this was nukes. Mutually assured destruction is why the Cold War is now called the Cold War, and not World War 3. And it's why direct confrontation between developed nations has really become a thing of the past. Countries like China would never have been able to develop if not for the peace and stability that nuclear weapons have enabled. We can even look to nations like India. It's surreal to imagine that until 1947 that entire nation was just a property of the British Empire. Even the notion of a British Empire is surreal! But now that they have gained their independence and are a nuclear nation, they are also gradually increasing in prosperity as Indian decisions are being made to put Indians first. And as a nuclear power their decisions, independence, and developments are all effectively guaranteed, at least until we develop technology that can effectively render nukes harmless.

This is an amazing and thought provoking point. Nation states seem to go through two major phases on the road to a high level of development; the first is Peace & Health where violent conflict declines and some basic health/education/etc. infrastructure can be put into place. The second is Economy where the economy liberalizes and local producers gradually become smarter and more productive and climb the value chain through exports.

Possessing nuclear weapons is a powerful Peace hack. Once you have them no one can really invade you without the threat of suffering massive collateral damage.

If we want to talk about the raw numbers of people getting out of extreme poverty, it follows that India and China acquiring a nuclear deterrent specifically had the biggest impact as their populations are so large.

Nukes were a terrible gamble, though. The Cold War may be remembered as cold, but it was only couple of button presses away from burning all industrialized nations to the ground, and for good. It's boggles the mind that we got to the point where we are today.

Yes, globalisation plus free trade and capitalism.

IMO that only works when it's coupled with progress in governance. Compare Venezuela to India over the last 30 years, and extrapolate into the near future what will happen there.

Edit: Just to anticipate the obligatory "Venezuala communist -> bad outcome" comment: Yes, but why are they communist?

>Compare Venezuela to India over the last 30 years, and extrapolate into the near future what will happen there.

Compare how? What do you mean will happen?

> What do you mean will happen?

Even in its deepest crises, India's army did not play kingmaker. Furthermore, India's federated structure–while annoying to reformers–checks the power of aspiring dictators. Every uneducated population, it seems, elects populists from time to time. The damage they can do in India appears to be more limited than the damage done to Venezuela by Chavez and Maduro. Venezuela will probably be an impoverished nation for decades; India has a chance of becoming a middle-income or even developed country by 2050.

I recommend to look at the following:

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar...

And industrial policy, which has transformed East Asia and created a second First World.

Or, you know, public education and health programs, and improved local governance.

Or maybe you can't understand the world with a few simple abstract high level concepts.....