Malaysia since independence in 1957 has enjoyed six decades of sustained growth in per capita income. The per capita GDP growth rate over this period has averaged 3.8 per cent per year. This compares with a 1.8 per cent per year average for Latin America over the same time period and only 0.7 per cent for Sub-Saharan Africa. The average standard of living in Malaysia increased nearly 8 fold. Only a handful of economies, mostly in Northeast Asia, have done better. Furthermore, Malaysia achieved this growth while carrying out a major social program designed to both eliminate poverty and the identification of different occupations with race or ethnicity.

The attainment of these economic and social goals owes something to the pre-independence British colonial government. The country began independence with two strong natural resource industries (rubber and tin) and a transport and urban infrastructure that was well above the average of most of Asia and Latin America. But the profits from these endeavors went mostly back to England. It was the post-independence governments that brought these profits home to Malaysia and used the country's resources together with foreign direct investment to build a modern industrial economy with some of the best infrastructure in the world (Sultan Nazrin Shah, 2017). It was the post-1969 governments that also instituted policies that have gone a long way towards eliminating extreme poverty and eliminating the identification of particular occupations with race. These social programs have helped create a stable political environment without which sustained economic growth would not have been possible.

Past success, however, does not guarantee continued economic success in the future. GDP per capita growth has slowed slightly to 3.1 per cent a year over 2006 to 2016 but that in itself is not a problem (World Bank, 2016). No country that has reached high middle income status has continued to grow at the near double digit pace experienced in much of Northeast Asia. Malaysia is already at the upper end of what the World Bank considers to be high middle income status. The potential problems facing Malaysia lie elsewhere.

Many countries when they reach the high middle income level face new problems. This was true in much of Latin America where rich natural resources, largely in the hands of a few, were combined with a working age population mainly in factories rather than farms and a growing educated middle class. This generated political pressures that brought to power populist leaders and military dictators that gained support through policies that inhibited economic development. Argentina, one of the richest countries in the world in 1900, was ruled in the 1940s by Juan Peron and his policies have led the country from one crisis to the next ever since. Despite gaining independence in the 1820s, much of Latin America has been stuck at the middle income level for decades. These Latin American countries did not all follow the path of Argentina but most found other ways to reduce the performance of their economies, Venezuela being a recent extreme example despite, or because of, its great oil wealth.