Why Poor Countries are Poor

I am taking a class called Comparative Politics and we just today
talked about "Why Poor Countries are Poor." I found it interesting
that one of the theories we discussed is the idea that countries,
especially those in Latin America, that only produce agricultural
products, will suffer due produce's inelastic demand. Thus no matter
the wealth of the United States, there won't be a higher demand for
bananas if wages go up. I just thought it was an interesting theory of
why Latin America seems to be stuck in a perpetual state of economic
instability.