As I pointed out in an earlier column in Slate , the growth of labor-intensive exports from ThirdWorld countries, a development possible only because those countries are able to offset their disadvantages by competing on the basis of cheap labor, has brought about a huge improvement in the human condition, even if the wages look miserably low by our standards.
He is credited with saving perhaps a billion people in thirdworld countries from starvation with his development of high-yield disease-resistant wheat varieties.