The Nature of Wealth
How Asia climbed from poverty to wealth in one lifetime, what the great thinkers of East, West and Africa teach, and a path for Mozambique from a poor to a wealthy nation through agriculture and markets.
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- Buying this book sponsors a farmer: $5 of every copy buys seed in Mozambique
The short answer
Mozambique can become a wealthy nation, and the road starts in its fields. Every Asian country that became rich began by making its farmers productive and secure, then processed and sold what they grew, then educated its people, and finally built its own brands, science and capital.
In 1960 South Korea earned about 159 US dollars per person. By 2025 it earned more than 36,000. Mozambique earns about 627 today, roughly what Korea earned in the mid-1970s in current dollars.
The book turns the lessons of Asia, and of more than fifty thinkers from three continents, into a four-stage plan for Mozambique: feed and secure, process and sell, learn and build, own and innovate.
Read the opening free
From the introduction, as printed.
Mozambique can become a wealthy nation, and the road starts in its fields. That is the answer this book reaches after studying how Asia climbed from mass poverty to wealth in a single lifetime, and after listening to the economists, marketers, innovators and philosophers of Asia, the West and Africa.
In The Nature of Poverty I asked whether poverty is a human characteristic or a human condition. The evidence answered clearly: poverty is mostly a condition, created by nature, history and institutions, and conditions can be changed. That answer leaves a second question, and it is the one Mozambicans ask me most often: if poverty can be changed, how exactly do we change it, and how far can we go?
Every copy plants seed
$5 from every copy sold buys seed for a smallholder farmer in Mozambique. We publish the seed receipts and field photos in our monthly letter, so you can see where it went. The first step of the plan in this book, done one family at a time.
What is inside
- What is wealth? Money, assets, capability and enough
- The Asian ladder: Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh and India
- Asian philosophies of wealth: Guanzi, Confucius, Mencius, Sima Qian, Kautilya, Ishida Baigan, Shibusawa Eiichi
- Ten Asian economists: Akamatsu, Okita, Goh Keng Swee, Sen, Mahbub ul Haq, Yunus, Bhagwati, Ohno, Justin Lin, Ha-Joon Chang
- Ten great Western economists: Smith, Ricardo, List, Schumpeter, Keynes, Hayek, Rostow, Hirschman, Solow, North
- Ten great marketing scholars: Borden, McCarthy, Levitt, Drucker, Kotler, Ries and Trout, Porter, Aaker, Prahalad, Sharp
- Ten great innovators: Gutenberg, Watt, Edison, Ford, Toyoda and Ohno, McLean, Borlaug, Yuan Longping, Swaminathan, M-Pesa
- Five Asian spiritual schools: Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Hindu dharma and artha, Sikhism
- Five African philosophers: Ibn Khaldun, Nkrumah, Nyerere, Amílcar Cabral, Mogobe Ramose and Ubuntu
- Twelve patterns of the climb that they all agree on
- Mozambique today: assets, traps and the cashew lesson
- The plan: four stages from poor to wealthy through agriculture and markets
- Marketing Mozambique: national position, origin brands and the farmer as entrepreneur
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Read both books
The Nature of Poverty asks why nations are poor. The Nature of Wealth asks how they become rich. The Nature of Belonging asks what kind of belonging a nation needs to grow rich together.
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Frequently asked questions
How did Asian countries move from poverty to wealth?
Almost all followed the same order: a farm revolution with secure land and better seed, then labour-intensive processing and exports, then heavy investment in education and technology, and finally their own brands and research. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Vietnam all began with their farmers.
Can Mozambique become a wealthy country?
Yes, if it follows the patterns Asia followed. Mozambique has about 36 million hectares suitable for farming, of which only a tenth is cultivated, great rivers, three trade corridors and a young population. The book sets out a four-stage plan with clear gates between stages.
What is the middle-income trap?
It is when a country grows out of poverty on cheap labour and raw materials but then stalls, because its firms never learn to make more advanced products or build their own brands. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia have struggled with it.
Why does the book include marketing scholars?
Because economists explain how wealth is produced and marketers explain how it is captured. Mozambique exports most crops raw and unbranded, so others keep most of the value. Origin brands, processing and knowing the customer change that.
Who wrote The Nature of Wealth?
Anselmo Boaventura, founder of Maputo Bridge Capital, which connects sponsors with smallholder farmers in Mozambique, and author of The Nature of Poverty.
About the author
Anselmo Boaventura founded Maputo Bridge Capital in Fort Worth, Texas, to connect sponsors with verified smallholder farmers in Mozambique. Sponsors fund a farmer's seed and fertilizer from $25 and receive the receipt and field photos. Sponsorships are gifts, not investments.