The Best of Times
Michael Barone, the smartest guy in American politics, writes about the unprecedented economic prosperity in the world today over in Real Clear Politics:

In 2005, as in 2004, the world economy grew by about 5 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF projects similar growth for several years to come. This is faster growth than in all but a few peak years in the 1980s and 1990s, and it's in vivid contrast to the long periods of stagnation or contraction in history.

The great engine of this growth is, of course, the United States, which produces more than one-quarter of world economic product and whose gross domestic product has been growing at around 4 percent -- 4.7 percent in the latest quarter. Other engines are China and India, each with about a sixth of the world's people, and economic growth of 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively. But other areas are growing, too: Eastern Europe (5 percent), Russia (6 percent), East Asia (5 percent), Latin America (4 percent), even the Middle East (6 percent) and sub-Saharan Africa (5.5 percent).

Lagging behind are the Euro area (1 percent) and the rest of Western Europe (2 percent). Lesson: Sclerotic welfare states produce mass unemployment and stifle initiative and innovation.

Barone also notes that not only is the world economy thriving, human suffering has also been greatly reduced:

But aren't we also living in times of record strife? Actually, no. Just the opposite. The Human Security Centre of the University of British Columbia has been keeping track of armed conflicts since World War II. It reports that the number of genocides and violent conflicts dropped rapidly after the end of the Cold War, and that in 2005 the number of armed conflicts was down 40 percent from 1992.

Wars have also become less deadly: The average number of people killed per conflict per year in 1950 was 38,000; in 2002, it was just 600. The conflict in Iraq has not significantly changed that picture. American casualties are orders of magnitude lower than in the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, and precision weapons have enabled us to vastly reduce the civilian death toll.

Finally, Barone notes the that the stumbling block appears to be Islamic fascism. He notes the recent letter from Iran's President to President Bush:

As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in his recent letter to President Bush: "Liberalism and Western-style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today, those two concepts have failed."

That's obviously nonsense, of course. Free markets and democracy are chalking up one ringing achievement after another -- as we can see from the surge in world economic growth and the reduction of armed conflict -- while the Islamists can achieve their goals only through oppression and slaughter.

Yes, they can inflict severe damage on us by asymmetric warfare, as they did on Sept. 11, and we must continue to take determined action to prevent them from doing so again. Yes, a nuclear Iran is a severe threat. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, in most important respects, our civilization is performing splendidly.

Good article. Read the whole thing.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:44 AM