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20 PEACE IN VIETNAM capita income over the decade by no more than $25, from $105 in 1950 to $130 in 1960. In other words per capita income in these countries rose by a mere $2.50 a year. What is more significant is that during this ten-year period, the gap between standards of living in these countries and standards of living in the advanced countries widened in both absolute and relative terms,! Naturally conditions of livelihood and economic growth in the underdeveloped countries of Asia vary from country to country and from area to area within countries. The situation in Thailand and Burma with their general rice surplus is clearly better than that of India, where food shortages are approaching catastrophic proportions. Also the rich delta area of southern Thailand presents a different picture from that of its impoverished northeast. But these are relative differences and temporary advantages. In none of these countries has a modern economy developed. In varying degrees they all are dominated by traditional patterns of agrarian subsistence economy. Land is the essential element of wealth, and what little private capital is accumulated is usually invested in buying more land, in usury, or in commodity speculation. Seldom is it put to work as productive capital beyond making minimal improvements in land or processing techniques. The preceding chapter showed that nationalism is the prime mover in the emancipation from colonial mile, The need and de- mand for sociceconomic innovation accompanies nationalism and becomes more insistent as time goes by. It must necessarily be a dominant preoccupation of any new national government. The United States must learn to deal with this and welcome its con- structive aspects. In remarks to editors and broadcasters attending a national foreign policy conference in Washington on April 21, 1964, Presi- dent Johnson said; Poverty, hunger, and disease are afflictions as old as man himself. But in our time and in this age there has been a change. The change is not so much in the realities of life, but in the hopes and expecta- tions of the future. If a peaceful revolution in these areas is impossible, a violent revolution is inevitable. "4 Vital Speeches of the Day, October 15, 1965, p. 31.