And Now for the Good News

This year has certainly been one for the doom-and-gloom record books.  Even a die-hard optimist like yours truly has had to clean off his rose-colored glasses more times than he cares to remember, and misjudged the economy more than he cares to admit.  Granted, most of my current gloominess is the result not of the economy itself but of the way in which political actors, policy experts, and certain recent Nobel Prize winners have responded to the current recession.

But in the midst of all the doom and gloom, Radley Balko of Reason has done us all a nice favor by giving us an overview of the socio-economic good news in 2008.  Crime in general, sex crimes, cancer deaths and divorce are all down, life expectency and indicators of good juvenile behavior, not to mention average hours of leisure time, are all up.  He concludes:

Doom and gloomers have been predicting the downfall of American society for generations. The last 20 or so years in particular have seen incredible advances in technology that have given us a wealth of new choices, exponentially enhancing our personal and economic freedom. The worrywarts fret that our society can't handle that sort of freedom — that prosperity and unlimited choices coupled with the absence of need will spell our ruin.

This year's headlines aside, we seem to be handling it all pretty well.

I can think of no better way to ring out the old year and welcome in the new than a little perspective on the big picture.  Idiot politicians and Nobel Prize winners aside, I still hold to the same view as Balko does in his conclusion:  life on the 3rd rock from the sun has never been better.

I still firmly believe that human ingenuity, innovation, and achievement will always win out in the medium and long run over the forces of human hubris, ignorance, and mendacity.  Perhaps it is the remnants of the Randianism of my youth, but I could not wake up in the morning if I didn't believe the universe was a benevolent place full of wonder and joy there for the experiencing.  So as those of us who believe in liberty close out a year that has been awful for both the economy and good economics, we could all benefit from a little reminder that the amount of freedom we do have left continues to make the world an ever-better place for more and more of humanity. 

Those same forces of ingenuity and innovation and freedom have given us the technology that makes possible this blog and our ability to spread good economics and the message of freedom, even when both are under threat as never before.  Thanks to all of you, our commenters, for being an integral part of spreading those messages. 

Best wishes to all for a more free, prosperous, and peaceful 2009.

 

Comments

[Mario Rizzo]

What also "saves" us is our evolutionarily-developed psychological tendency to adapt to circumstances in the long run, no matter how bad. For example, if someone is in a car accident and loses a leg he may say: "Thank God I wasn't killed." So the fact that Steve wanted to post this and thought his readers would like it is consistent with this theory. So by all means be happy about the good and downplay the bad. Darwin orders you.

[lwaaks]

I would like to rescind some of Darwin's orders, specifically those that contravene freedom and foster "The People's Romance" (Dan Klein). But until then, Happy New Year!

[Dave Prychitko]

Ahem... I thought social evolution was more Lamarkian than Darwinian.

Oh, what the hell. Here's to the New Year.

[Pravin]

Uh...how old is the US society?. The nation is 230 years odd.Not much in the timescale of human history.No it is not the end of human life as we know it.But the US is not the be all and end of humanity is it?.
It consumes too much,saves too less,has a large population in the entitlement mindtrap.There HAS to be a substantial decline in standards of living to returns things to sanity(reversal to mean).
That doesnt mean the TVs wouldnt be cheaper or slimmer next year.Or we wouldnt be able to find ways to get over the end of oil..but what has that got to do with the so called American dream?.
Pursuit of happiness?. Bhutan was happier than any country on earth -until Cable TV and Revlon landed in the streets of Thimpu.

[Dave Prychitko]

Steve: So do you disagree with the data, the methodology, or perhaps both in this piece:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/352/11/1138

Or perhaps you feel it's not all that significant a challenge to your perennial optimism.

[Dave Prychitko]

Full text here:

http://web.mac.com/sjayo/SJayOlshansky/Background_files/NEJM2005final.pdf

[Steve Horwitz]

After a skim, my first reaction is whether ceteris is paribus. Sure, all other things equal a rise in obesity could reduce life expectancies, but the question then is whether other ongoing changes won't be lengthening it (e.g., the fall in cancer deaths noted in Balko's piece) at the same time. And, one has to consider that rising obesity-related illness and death might spur new technologies and strategies for combatting it in turn. Isn't that how markets and science work after all? ;)

If I were to bet, I'd still bet on life expectancies increasing, although it could well be that they won't increase as much as they would have due to rising obesity rates.

[Dave Prychitko]

Good point on cet. par. Also true of medical technology, institutions that foster innovation, billions of government funding of scientific research, FDA scale and scope, and so on and so forth. All cet. par. issues, but indeed cet. par. predictions -- and their interaction at the broader level -- allow for more careful guesses. The issue is more like -- dare I say -- guessing the GE outcomes rather than, as you point out, isolated PE or cet. par. outcomes.

[Grant]

I think estimated the rise of obesity itself is suspect. If you plot any current trend to some future date, things generally tend to look pretty bleak. In the case of obesity, many new drugs and treatments are going to become available to combat it.

Although I prefer exercise, we may be able to eat our cake and stay skinny.

[scineram]

Hungary and he US were both happier than Bhutan always.