The Consequences of Failure

Lost amid the hubbub surrounding The End of Men was a quote from another Atlantic article from that issue

Sitting in the café [in Antananarivo, Madagascar] with an espresso and a mille-feuille, [former Stanford economist Paul] Romer could see young men, stunted from malnutrition, watching over the cars parked in front of the hotel, hoping for a few tips. A portly European of a certain age walked by with an attractive young Malagasy woman on his arm, and the men outside the hotel stared. The look on their faces expressed all that needed to be said about global inequality.