The relationship between longer lives, more income, greater freedom, and other aspects of prosperity also show up in other indicators. Here are just three:
Keep in mind that the world's population has nearly doubled over the time elapsed in these graphs. Thus, the absolute numbers grow rapidly if the percentages are increasing. I could go on with more stats like the precipitous drop in conflicts worldwide over the fifteen years (click here), but you get the picture. The world is becoming a more prosperous place for more and more people!
With that said, I want to be clear on a few issues. Nothing I've written in these last three posts justifies colonialism or the horrific abuses that have occurred with oppression. Nor does it justify interventionist acts committed by the United States and other world powers in pursuit of their own interest. Nor does it suggest that there isn't abuse today or that every corner of the world is growing prosperity. But it suggests that, in a stumbling, bumbling manner, the world has been experiencing a widespread and spreading outbreak of prosperity that dwarfs anything humanity has encountered before.
In the next few posts, I want to look at what sparked the changes of the last three centuries.
(For further enlightenment, I'd also invite you to check out this entertaining and informative 20-minute presentation at the TED conferences by Hans Rosling about the improving state of the world.)
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