The very strange world of today

Via Brad DeLong,an analysis of archaeological data that shows a sharp rise in living standards (PDF) in the Roman Empire around Year 1, followed by the well known decline and fall and the long languishment of the Dark Ages. Author Willem Jongman offers no particular explanation for the rise,  and he rather lamely blames the fall on the Antonine plague and climate change. In any case, I draw attention to this because it is the only strong precedent for the astonishing developments of the past two and a half centuries.While many people do still live at a bare subsistence level, that was the norm for the vast majority of humans until something a bit mysterious happened around the late 18th Century. Now it is no longer the norm in most of the world and in fact the typical human in the U.S. and Western Europe enjoys a standard of living, a life expectancy and standard of health that the kings and emperors of the 18th Century would envy, in fact could not have imagined. That we achieve this by consuming the carrying capacity of the earth, sea and atmosphere, and will soon hit a wall at 100 mph we will leave aside for now. The anomaly itself is what I want to discuss.Whatever led to the Roman abundance, it wasn ' t much to do with technology. The major technologies of iron, domesticated horses, and Mediterranean navigation preceded the Romans. It was something about their social organization. They did have entrepreneurship, factories, a form of capitalism if you like, but that ...

Source: Stayin' Alive - December 17, 2019 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs