The origins of wealth and inequality

Galor believes the origin of inequality goes back to planting wheat or rice! Planting wheat requires ploughing by masculine power while planting and watering rice requires cooperation of a big group of people. Comparing Afghanistan with Malaysia through this lens, cultivating wheat is popular in Afghanistan and we can see that bread and flour is an integral part of Afghan cuisine. Malaysian weather on the other hand, is perfect for cultivating rice, that's why most Malaysian food is rice-based, even their desert and sweets like pulut. This might explain why women suffer less in Malaysia compared to Afghanistan.

I am reminded of my reading opium cultivation in south Afghanistan, a source of Taliban's income. Opium cultivation, drug trade, mines and minerals, foreign donations from Gulf states like Qatar and UAE and conflict and capturing military posts are their main source of income, and these are mostly run by men. They become richer under the eyes of Americans in Afghanistan compared to the first time they were in power.
According to Galor, industrial revolution led to public access to education, development and technology in the west. Now, the Taliban are back in power. They probably think that as they made money and gained power without women, women don't need education and work, and this means in the long term, Afghanistan will never become an industrial country.
10 minutes after I finished Galor's book on 29^th January and digesting the disappointing facts; my mother called me. My family lives in a village near an industrial park in the west of Afghanistan. Some women and young girls from that village work in the factories. When I was in Afghanistan, most men in that village were shaming on other men who let their mother and sisters work in those factories. I asked my mom if those women were still allowed to work there? She said: Yes, the factories are run by private individuals and when the Taliban came to power, they gave special cards to those women stating they are allowed to work. So anytime they pass any checkpoint, they can show their cards. That was a slight relief.

Note: It's an old post from my Facebook.