Is the World Really Better than Ever?

At the end of July this year, there appeared in The Guardian an article by Oliver Burkeman entitled Is the world really better than ever?   The article takes a swipe at what it calls the "new optimism."  The new optimists are writers and thinkers who see the future as something to look forward to rather than to dread.  They include people like economic historian Deidre McCloskey, Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton, environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, psychologist Steven Pinker, economist Max Roser, statistician Hans Rosling and historian Johan Norberg.

Even though I don't know Mr. Burkeman and doubt that he knows who I am, I got the sense from reading the piece that it was aimed directly at me.   After all, I seem to have fallen in among the “new optimists,” and I'm an unabashed disciple of the late Hans Rosling.  For some of my thoughts on the matter, see Reasons to Look Forward to 2017; The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.  The current Dr. Pete also weighed in at one point.  Why we are not Doomed.

The article is curious because it denies none of the facts upon which the new optimism is based.  As the author himself concedes:

the New Optimists are certainly right on the nostalgia front: nobody in their right mind should wish to have lived in a previous century…. People are indeed rising out of extreme poverty at an extraordinary rate; child mortality really has plummeted; standards of literacy, sanitation and life expectancy have never been higher. …  we are living in history’s most peaceful era, with violence of all kinds – from deaths in war to schoolyard bullying – in steep decline.

So, without doubt, the answer to the question posed by the article’s title – is the world really better than ever? – is yes.

But, Burkeman believes that hidden within the new optimists’ claims is a certain complacency and resistance to change, and sees the movement as an essentially conservative enterprise.  He describes the new optimist view as that “whatever we’ve been doing these past decades, it’s clearly working, and so the political and economic arrangements that have brought us here are the ones we ought to stick with.”  He adds that the new optimists want us to “dispense with our cherished theories about what is wrong with the world and what should be done about it.”  Rather, sit back and enjoy the incredible numbers.

I can’t speak for others, but for my money the “new optimism” carries with it the opposite message.  It’s the old pessimism that breeds complacency and lethargy.  What is the point of trying to make a difference if the world is in a death spiral?  You might as well stay home, enjoy yourself and wait for the end.  But, if in fact things are improving – not by some hidden hand of necessity but by people working to make it happen – then there is every reason to add your name to the fight.

Now, I don't dispute Burkeman when he says that the new optimists tend to like free trade.  We like it because, not only is trade a positive-sum game that increases global prosperity, but it makes other people outside your own tribe more valuable to you alive than dead, and so produces a peace dividend.  As Robert Wright, author of Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, says, “One of the many reasons I don't want to bomb the Japanese is that they built my minivan.”  But free trade is hardly the lynch-pin of the new optimism.  Nor is there any message that we should just keep on what we’re doing.  The fact of the matter is, I don’t see much of a political agenda there at all, unless it’s the promotion of human ingenuity.

Because, if anything has got us where we are today, it’s human ingenuity.   As examples. I offer two giants of ingenuity whose contributions have vastly improved the human condition.  One is Norman Borlaug, father of the “Green Revolution,” who developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties that have dramatically reduced world hunger.  He has been credited with saving a billion lives.  Or, Maurice Ralph Hilleman, an American microbiologist who specialized in vaccinology, developed over 36 vaccines, including those for measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox and meningitis.  There's a very long list of others who have made important albeit less far-reaching contributions -- that have also led to the new optimism.  The new optimism simply points out that people can change things.

Finally, no one is saying that there aren’t problems.  Hans Rosling didn't even call himself an optimist.  He called himself was a “possibilist” – he believed, not in any guarantees, but in the possibility of making the world better.  So, climate change, water shortages, species extinction or nuclear war are still threats that could undo everything.  Wage stagnation and the persistence of racism and xenophobia are also serious concerns today.  But, I’m not sure how the old pessimism is going to help improve these situations.  Steven Pinker, who also describes the world in positive terms, says this: “People think that if you emphasize how things have gone well it is the same as saying no problems remain. That’s not true.  In fact, I strongly suspect that people are more motivated to reduce problems like poverty and violence if they think there is a good chance they can succeed.”  My point exactly.

Hilleman and  Borlaug