Life Is Great

Gregg Easterbrook via Pete Du Pont in the WSJ

• Life expectancy in America has increased from 41 years at the beginning of the 20th century to 77 in 2000; we live almost twice as long as we did a century ago. And both longevity and health are bound to get better. Infant mortality is down 45% since 1980, and we spent 50% more on health care per person in 2002 than in 1982. For example, there were 200,000 knee replacements in 2001 at an average cost of $26,000. That's $5.2 billion for a health-care procedure that didn't exist a decade ago.

• Incomes are up. Inflation-adjusted per capita income has doubled since 1960. And we're working less for more money. The average American worked 66 hours a week in 1850, 53 hours in 1900 and 42 today. The total number of working hours in the average lifetime has declined linearly for 15 consecutive decades. In 1880 the typical American spent two hours a week relaxing; today it is 40.

• Poverty is down. Twenty-two percent of Americans lived in poverty in 1960; by 2001 that rate had declined to 11.7%. Mr. Easterbrook concludes that to avoid becoming poor in the U.S. "you must do three things: graduate from high school, marry after the age of 20, and marry before having your first child." Only 8% of those who do all three become poor; 79% of the poor failed to do them. Contrary to pessimist mantra, democratic capitalism forces poverty on no one.

We are not running out of any resource--oil, natural gas, copper, aluminum or anything else. Pollution is down; today's new cars emit "less than 2% as much pollution per mile as a car of 1970." Man and technology are not the enemies of the natural environment. In Connecticut the population tripled and agricultural production quadrupled in the 20th century, yet the state is 59% forested today compared with 37% in the 19th century.

• Illegal drug use, alcohol consumption, teen pregnancy and the divorce rate are all down. Crime is substantially down. Food production, educational attainment (12.3 years on average, the highest in the world), white-collar jobs (which now outnumber blue-collar ones) and house size and ownership (70% own their own homes today, compared with 20% a century ago) are all up.

• The goods available to us are overwhelming, and getting cheaper all the time. Mr. Easterbrook notes there were 11 million cell phones in the world in 1990; there are now more than a billion. Regular gasoline costs the same in real terms as it did in 1950. Cheeseburgers that cost 30 minutes of work at typical wages when the first McDonald's opened now can be bought for three minutes of work. The 1880s prairie farmer knew little of what was happening in the outside world; today television and the Internet give him hourly access to global information on the economy, war and peace and the NFL playoffs, and of course he can see every fire, crime, disaster and political accusation produced.

All this progress is not just in America or wealthy nations. Middle-class men and women in Europe and America live better than 99.4% of humans who have ever lived. In 1975 the average income in developing nations was $2,125 per capita; today (inflation adjusted) it is $4,000. Global adult literacy was 47% in 1970; 30 years later it was 73%.

And democratic capitalism triumphed over communism without a shot being fired. The best governmental and economic system the world has ever known simply crushed the century's worst idea.