All Bauer's writings aimed to demolish the premise that the wealth of the colonial powers was a consequence of the poverty of the colonised – and vice versa. The prosperity of the United States and Japan, he insisted, has nothing to do with the poverty of Chad, Mali and Nepal. The development economist therefore rejected the very category of the 'Third World', arguing that it conflated 'a vast and diverse collection of societies differing widely in religion, culture, social institutions, personal characteristics and motivations'.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 405