![]() ![]() ![]() That it is richer, healthier, and kinder too, as much because of commerce as despite it. First, I need to convince you that human progress has, on balance, been a good thing, and that, despite the constant temptation to moan, the world is as good a place to live as it has ever been for the average human being – even now in a deep recession. In the pages that follow I hope to make you a rational optimist too. I am a rational optimist: rational, because I have arrived at optimism not through temperament or instinct, but by looking at the evidence. (Markets in goods and services need less regulation.) Speculation, herd exuberance, irrational optimism, rent-seeking and the temptation of fraud drive asset markets to overshoot and plunge – which is why they need careful regulation, something I always supported. No single person knows how to make a computer mouse it’s the combination of many people over a long period of time.Įxperiments in laboratories by the economist Vernon Smith and his colleagues have long confirmed that markets in goods and services for immediate consumption – haircuts and hamburgers – work so well that it is hard to design them so they fail to deliver efficiency and innovation while markets in assets are so automatically prone to bubbles and crashes that it is hard to design them so they work at all. The 21st century will bring more and more prosperity to more of the world, as we continue to innovate and find solutions that haven’t been thought of yet.Īt some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal.Solar and nuclear make the most sense as the cure to fossil fuels.Climate change will have significant positive effects, and may in fact be an overall net positive.Most technological change comes from attempts to improve existing technology, among practitioners, by trial-and-error.Biofuel subsidies have had one of the largest negative environmental impacts of any initiative worldwide.But governments that are too strong tend to stifle innovation and business. Property rights, making it easier to do business, and safety are all things government can do to help trade.Free trade causes prosperity protectionism causes poverty.The point of agriculture: diverting labour of other species to provide services for human beings.“Liberty and welfare march hand-in-hand with prosperity and trade.”.The definition of a high standard of living: diverse consumption, simplified production.But social and political liberation is far more effective at increasing happiness.On average, all other things being equal, more money does make you happier.The world is as good a place as it has ever been for the average human being, and it will continue to get better.Human intelligence is collective it is rare that one person knows how to make something. ![]()
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